Chaos awaits One SA Movement and other independent candidates

There’s been much speculation that in next month’s local elections, independent candidates might break open
the two-party logjam.

Some are putting their money where the mouth is.

The former great black hope of opposition politics, Mmusi Maimane, has staked what’s left of his political reputation on it. His One South Africa Movement (OSA) is backing 300 independent candidates in 12 municipalities.

Maimane says that these elections were about “uncapturing” local government from the “shackles of political parties”.

OSA’s stated aim is not only to eat into the support of the existing political parties, but to win over the millions of citizens who had given up on voting and act as kingmaker.

And OSA has it on the button. This election is not so much about parties winning converts as it is about overcoming the disillusionment and apathy of their former supporters.

After all, we have a governing ANC that is despised even by the shrinking number of people who still glumly, but loyally, turn out to vote for it.

We have an official opposition Democratic Alliance that, despite its good governance record, still induces a shudder of revulsion among African voters essential to its growth.

That leaves the disenchanted with few options. Aside from the KwaZulu-Natal-based Inkatha Freedom Party, only the race-baiting fascists of the Economic Freedom Fighters managed a meaningful performance in the 2016 municipal election.

Then are the new kids on the block. There’s the Freedom Front Plus (2.5% of the vote) and the African Christian Democratic Party (less than 1%).

Add in some similarly uninspiring rats and mice: Good (whose leader serves in an ANC Cabinet); and the Congress of the People (which has been shrinking unabatedly ever since its launch).

There are also two wild cards: ActionSA and the Cape Independence Party.

These dismal pickings make perfectly understandable the sudden enthusiasm for independents. But here are a number of arguments against this.

First, in SA, few independents get elected, except on the rare occasion when they are en bloc defections of existing councillors. There are considerable advantages to being part of established political organisations in terms of mobilising money and volunteers.

Second, this makes vulnerable the few independents who are elected. They struggle to make any meaningful contribution in the face of the monolithic voting mandates of the councillors representing parties.

When and if they are kingmakers, it’s to secure a brief interlude in the sun. They are soon ingested by one or another of the parties.

Third, whatever their many faults, political parties play an oversight role that is entirely absent among independent councillors.

There are no sanctions, no threat of expulsion, no spectre of ostracisation by former colleagues.

Maimane tried to address this troubling reality.

“Let me warn you,” he told the 300 candidates, “today, we sign a pledge that the people shall live, and the people shall govern … If you fail those people, we will remove you.”

This “or else” warning is meaningless. They cannot be suspended or expelled from OSA because they don’t belong to it. It’s chaos in the making.

So, wither the disenchanted voter? The reality that we have to come to terms with is the unfortunate truth that there are no perfect political parties.

While it’s satisfying to proclaim on social media one’s unalloyed moral virtue by rejecting all the parties as being fatally flawed, in most cases, to vote for independent candidates – even if they have the Pastor Maimane stamp of approval – is a waste of time.