The introduction of the Capitalist Party of South Africa, the ZACP, has unveiled a well-used but false trope I will call the ‘dilution of the vote argument’. Broadly speaking, the argument claims that a vote for a small party fractures the opposition to the DA and dilutes the efficacy of any opposition to a governing party. This is a misguided understanding of the South African political system.
South Africa has a proportional representation electoral system. In an election, political parties who receive votes win the number of seats in Parliament that are directly proportional to the number of votes they received in an election. For example, a party that earned 10% of the vote will receive 10% of the seats in Parliament. Countries like Germany, Hungary and Greece have a similar electoral system.
Unlike in those countries, however, in South Africa there is no minimum threshold for representation in parliament. This means that every 0,25% of the vote a party receives secures it one additional MP in the National Assembly.
Our system stands in contrast to the first past the post system found in the United Kingdom, where votes for a losing candidate are considered "wasted”. In the 2015 general elections UKIP garnered 3,9 million votes, or 12,6% of the total. This secured them one (0,2%) out of the 650 seats in the House of Commons.
There is another more insidious form of the claim where the Democratic Alliance is the vanguard opposition in South African politics and voting for a smaller party strengthens the ANC. Nothing could be further from the truth.
The DA has been the official opposition for twenty years and they have recently struggled to clearly delineate a principled path for themselves or for the citizens of South Africa.
Their manifesto is largely oriented towards a big government approach to solving problems that were created by big government. The DA has been unable to articulate radical policy and ideological shifts away from the ANC’s conception of statism and voters are noticing that.
Since the DA became the official opposition, Jacob Zuma has ridden roughshod over the independence of state institutions, loadshedding has returned, the police have admitted that they cannot fulfil their constitutional mandate and expropriation without compensation has been adopted as a policy.
The official opposition has not managed to dissipate the effects of these policies. Being an official opposition does not make one an effective opposition.
The DA is very successful when governing, they have made incredible gains in the Western Cape. The DA are trying to bring in Independent Power Producers to dissipate load-shedding and the province created 75% of all South African jobs in 2018. They deserve praise for that. However, being better at service delivery than the ANC is not a high bar.
Parliament needs to be infused with fresh blood and ideas. Stuffy career politicians, who have never provided value to ordinary South Africans, are tyrannical in their incompetence.
South Africa needs to work and it needs working people in Parliament.
Roman Cabanac is a candidate for the ZACP.
