Submitted by Marius Redelinghuys
“Stop Zuma!” two weeks before election day has become the epitome of the Democratic Alliance’s 2009 election campaign. However, the DA’s advertising campaign in various print media last week went further and loudly – in addition to the centrality of the anti-Zuma platform – dared to present to South Africans the idea of a wasted vote and a useless political party.
Yes, I have noticed and reject with the contempt it deserves the DA’s advertising campaign as dangerous, irresponsible, disgusting and insulting – it is a clear indication of a desperate attempt to cling to its 13% share of the vote in 2004 in the light of the persistent broad-based legitimacy and widespread support of the African National Congress, and the significant challenge posed to its support levels by the Congress of the People – especially in the light of the February/March Ipsos-Markinor survey indications that the DA is losing ground.
Above and beyond this, however, the DA’s clearly confrontational campaign is indicative of a number of attributes of the party.
First, it is in line with Siphamandla Zondi’s claim that the urgency to gain power at the ANC’s expense turned Helen Zille – and by extension the DA – into a Leon-style politician with her becoming negative and confrontational. And instead of constructive engagement, Zille allowed this to cloud her paranoia about ANC President Jacob Zuma, the ruling party and the government. This has become too prominent a feature of her public persona. Zondi further argues that “holding the ruling party to account is one thing; demonising the country is counter-productive” and that “the determination to defend the DA’s current powerbase is turning into a swart gevaar campaign”.
However, despite the anti-Zuma platform becoming the DA’s most prominent election platform, it rarely engages with the real issues or provides the electorate with substantive reasons for voting for the party and not against Zuma. The party’s constant tapping into white fear and liberal paranoia – its constant anti- anti- anti- rhetoric is disheartening, disappointing and not very constructive or encouraging. What is the DA if not anti-ANC?
Secondly, it’s claim that it is the only party big enough to stop the ANC – openly in the Brits Pos stating that a vote for the Freedom Front Plus is a “wasted vote” (here highlighting its “massive” 50 seats out of 400) – clearly illustrates that for the DA it is not about issues or substance, but that elections and government is a numbers game. I, personally, fail to see how 50 seats versus the Freedom Front’s 3, places it in a better position to make a difference.
Thirdly, the very idea of a “wasted vote” and its numbers game mentality clearly demonstrates the inability of the DA to understand the basic tenets and dynamics of party identification and the party and parliamentary system. Either this is the case, or the DA really does believe that the electorate is stupid. But let us assume that they would not dare make such a dangerous assumption and explain to them how there can be no such thing as a “too small party” or a “wasted vote”. Parties in a proportional representation parliamentary system articulate what we call interests and address concerns – these might be foreign concepts to the DA – but generally we can call this focusing on issues and substance. In other words, in addition to what the electorate does not want, the major component of choosing party is about what they actually do want. In South Africa, then, the FF+ speaks for a very specific interest group and thus constitutes a legitimate political entity, however marginal it may be.
Besides, the DA more than any other party should know that numbers mean nothing – having failed in the last 50 years of its existence to attract more than 13% of the vote, and for years having had only one member of parliament. I guess someone also needs to tell Zille that 50 seats still only amounts to a 12.5% “voice” in parliament.
Also, the idea of party identification is a relevant one. Maybe if the DA understood the dynamics thereof they would be able to extend their support base into the majority group in South Africa, and beyond the 5.8% black support (versus 63% white support) it currently banks on. Beyond race, however, there are other elements in party identification: does it bring hope, does it engender confidence, or do you only criticise and shout ad nauseum, which on a continent of optimism just scares people?
Even more so, the idea of a wasted vote and arguments against a multi-party system is also an insult in the light of a hard won right to vote and to form political parties that articulate interests and address concerns, an insult and an indication of its failure to understand the affective element of voting in South Africa, where the blood of thousands soaked the soil for freedom.
Again, in the South African party political system there are only two broadly representative, viable, legitimate and effective alternatives – the ANC and Cope – and many legitimate and effective, but narrow-interest parties. I think it is time that the DA openly, honestly and truthfully admit that it speaks for a specific interest group and start articulate the concerns and interests of that group by focusing on issues and substance. Right now it is overextending and hurting itself by pretending to be anything else and insulting our history and people in the process.
Redelinghuys is an honours student in political science at the University of Pretoria, an aspiring academic and a vocal and fervent member and supporter of the Congress of the People*. His study of international relations and political science has its roots in an intense interest in these fields and he enjoys actively engaging in discussion and debate surrounding issues of racial and social transformation in a post-apartheid South Africa
*The Community of Mandela Rhodes Scholars as an organisation is non-aligned
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