This column started out as an in-depth analysis of the various small parties contesting the local government elections. Well, not all of them, obviously, as our democracy has apparently gone forth and multiplied, as instructed in the Book of Corruption 9:7. I can’t remember the exact words, but it’s something like: "Zuma blessed them and said unto them: ‘Be fruitful and multiply, and capture the state and subdue it; and claim all the tenders for yourself and your family.’"
The upshot of this call to partake of the fruits of democracy is that we have 504 political parties registered with the Electoral Commission of SA, and a whopping 325 contesting the 2021 local government elections (or local government buffet, as many of our politicians think of it).
But while picking out the ones I wanted to write about, I became fascinated by some of the names. And by fascinated, I also mean bemused.
What, for example, is the Spectrum National Party? One could make a host of snide psychological jokes about the name, if it wasn’t for this accursed woke era in which we aren’t allowed to have any fun insults any more and the army of non-DA-voting social justice trolls are just waiting to attack us. (And remember, if you spot wokeness in your workplace or someone trying to tempt your children with CRT or, indeed, ANC, please report it to Helen Zille.)
It turns out the Spectrum National Party is funnier than any joke I could make. According to Independent Media, the website that put the L into IOL (yes, I’m still trying to get that to go "viral", as the kids used to say), the party is "led by businessman Christopher Claassen, who said that after 16 years running a security business and [with] no previous experience in politics, he can take on the established parties".
That statement is the embodiment of sheer entitled arrogance, but it also reflects a certain sad truth about how incompetent our political parties appear as we head towards this election.
Why do parties choose the names they do, and what’s popular? Before we tackle that, it might be fun to note that the UK’s office for national statistics has just released its list of popular baby names for England and Wales in 2020.
While this has no relevance to South Africans, it is interesting to see how the popularity of names changes over time. The data shows that Oliver is the No 1 name for boys for an eighth year in a row and Olivia is top for a fifth successive year for girls, but the popularity of other names waxes and wanes erratically.
For example, Maeve has broken into the top 100, jumping 124 places to 94th most-popular girl’s name, while Otis is up 28 places to 96th. Both names belong to characters in the Netflix hit Sex Education. And Archie moved up the boys’ list from 19th to ninth — the first time it’s made the top 10. This on the back of a royal baby, I believe.
It’s also the first time Charlie has missed the top 10 since 2005, slipping to 12th place. And Nigel Farage and assorted xenophobes will be thrilled to hear that Muhammad was top in four regions of England, and also that nobody had the bad taste to call their child Nigel in 2020.
All this does make you look at political parties’ names with fresh eyes.
You could waste your time reading the parties’ political manifestos — but we all know most will turn out to have a tenuous relationship with reality
According to my back-of-an-envelope calculation — in other words, don’t quote me — there are at least 13 parties with "Africa" or "African" in their names. A sample: African Restoration Alliance, African Christian Democratic Party, African Independent Congress, African Multicultural Economic Congress, African People’s Convention, African Transformation Movement, African Democrats, African Freedom Revolution, African Islamic Movement and the plaintive, desperate, God Save Africa party. Oh, and of course the big daddy, the African National Congress.
Why is "Africa" more popular than "South Africa"? I spotted only two parties with SA in their names. Is it the traditional SA strategy of making our problems someone else’s? Or is it an attempt to ride the Gucci tails of the big brand, the ANC? Or is it somehow a way of pushing back at the parties that implicitly have "European" in their names, such as the DA?
"Democratic" is also popular, over and above the party formerly known as A Credible Opposition. We have the Democratic Labour Party, Democratic Independent Party, Democratic People’s Alternative, Democratic People’s Movement and the oddly named Free Democrats.
Speaking of credible: there’s actually a party called the Credible Alternative 1st Movement.
This reminds me of a bit in a Terry Pratchett book, where a recent immigrant to Pratchett’s imaginary city of Ankh-Morpork asks for help choosing a name for his new restaurant. He looks for a word that means "everyday", and eventually finds one that sounds good. And so Mundane Meals is launched.
I imagine members of the CA1M asking themselves: what words mean credible alternative, number one, and some sort of movement? I know! Credible Alternative 1st Movement! In a sense, it’s genius. In another sense …
The Organic Humanity Movement is also inexplicable. Some sort of free-range revolution, where the chickens behead themselves? Who knows. Is it related to The Greens, which weirdly has the word "The" as part of its official name?
The Compatriots of SA seems friendly, and the Service Delivery Movement sounds like a riot a minute. Good ol’ Black First Land First is still there, with its paradoxical priority list. The Land Party has made its choice.
There are a bunch of parties that have added some sort of religious allusion to their names, both to put down a marker for what they stand for, but also, I imagine, in case the divine is susceptible to flattery. There’s Christians of SA, the Cape Muslim Congress and, of course, the God Save Africa party, which cleverly doesn’t specify which god it refers to.
And moving from the godly to the god-awful, there are the Cape lunatic fringe parties, such as the bilingual (but for "some" reason, not multilingual) Cape Independence Party/Kaapse Onafhanklikheids Party, and One Movement for Cape Town.
It’s a bewildering bunch, that’s for sure. Who are we going to vote for?
Now, you could waste your time reading the parties’ political manifestos — but we all know most of those are going to turn out to have a tenuous relationship with reality. Not just because politicians tend to lie, but because executing promises is always so much more difficult than making them.
So I’m going to suggest you choose who to vote for based on whether you like the party’s name. I venture that this would get us as democratically suitable a result as the more usual SA tradition of voting against someone.
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