MALAIKA MAHLATSI | New parties offer no new insights, solutions

Last week SA was introduced to yet another newly formed political party, Rise Mzansi. Led by former associate editor of the Financial Mail and former editor of Business Day Songezo Zibi, Rise Mzansi has been touted by many in the media as an exceptional alternative to existing political parties.

This is in part due to the perilous state of existing political parties, the instability of the current party-political system and the desperation that SA finds itself in. But it is also in part due to the profile of Rise Mzansi’s steering committee.

The committee is comprised largely of individuals with extensive corporate, government and civil society experience. This includes its national chairperson, Vuyiswa Ramokgopa, a respected business leader who recently served as the CEO of South African Institute of Black Property Professionals; legal head, Cilna Steyn, an entrepreneur and attorney with extensive experience in property law; and national spokesperson, Tebogo Moalusi, who has worked in leading investment banking, management consulting, private equity, ICT and insurance companies.

Others include the head of policy, political economist Mandla Isaacs, who previously worked as a management consultant at McKinsey & Company and director at the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change; the national organiser, Makashule Gana, a former youth leader of the DA, who served in the Gauteng provincial legislasture. Esther Padi, the national coordinator, Irfaan Mangera, the civic alliances coordinator and Faeeza Lok, the community coordinator, all have extensive experience as community activists.

In a political environment where professional capacity is rarely factored in, the Rise Mzansi team is formidable. It makes sense why part of the hype around the party is about the credentials of its leaders. South Africans have come to associate the malaise in government with the lack of education and corporate expertise of elected officials.

In a knowledge-based economy, it makes sense to prioritise education and corporate/civil society experience. However, this must not be seen as the panacea to the challenges that face SA and its party-political system. My concern with Rise Mzansi and the many emerging political parties is the lack of creativity in their synthesis of the solutions to the country’s problems. Everyone seems to believe that the only way to change SA is to run for office.

And so, new political parties are continuously being formed. They offer no new insights or solutions – just the same diagnosis of the problems we all know about and the belief that they can do better than the hundreds of parties that already exist. The problem with this electoral-centric approach is that it has little appreciation of how real politics actually work, and it also doesn’t make allowance for the imagination of change that is rooted in a bottom-up approach.

It is possible to influence legislative outcomes through means such as mass mobilisation and organisation, as we saw with the fight for anti-retroviral treatment in the early 2000s, the Equal Education battle for the introduction of minimum standards in schools, the introduction of free education as a result of #FeesMustFall and many other critical interventions that have shaped government policy.

Furthermore, electoral politics, in reality, are fundamentally a game of numbers. Parties with less numbers have very little influence, particularly in parliament. Even in coalition governments in municipalities, their ability to make meaningful legislative contributions is very limited and subject to the buy-in of those parties that maintain plurality, in most cases, this being the ANC. 

We need a new government. But we also need a strong popular movement that can guide change. I would have supported Rise Mzansi if it mobilised and facilitated progressive parties forming a coalition in government while it strengthened and united civil society outside. But as things stand, it’s just another party saying what every new party says. And I’m tired of them all.