Why party primaries should get SA’s vote
If parties want voters to like their leaders, they had better let them choose them. Public discussion on the battle to choose the next ANC leader has taken on an unreal air. We are told Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma is “way ahead” because she is “actively campaigning”. When Cyril Ramaphosa makes a speech, we are told excitedly that he has “finally” launched his campaign.
This would make sense if ANC presidential hopefuls were competing for public support. But they are not: the winner will not be chosen by voters, but by delegates to the next ANC conference.
Support for candidates among citizens has no bearing on whether they become ANC leaders — what matters is backing from dues-paying members.
This means ANC presidents are chosen by a tiny minority of ANC supporters. The ANC won about 11.4-million votes in 2014; membership was about 750,000. So, only about one in 15 ANC supporters had a say in choosing the president. Since all parties’ members are only a fraction of their supporters, this applies to other parties too.
In theory, this is democratic because voters can reject a party if they don’t like its leader. But most voters in SA do not select parties the way they choose goods in a shop: they see them as their political home. And so the system forces them to leave their home or put up with leaders they have no say in choosing. This makes it likely that voters will be saddled with the president they must endure, not the one they want.
This is why we often hear calls for the electorate to have a say in choosing the president. But while these calls put their finger on the problem, they do not offer a solution since direct election would make presidential elections less democratic.
If we did have direct presidential elections, the parties would still nominate the candidates in the same way as they do now — the same small group of members would decide for all other party supporters. Voters would still have to dump their political home or vote for someone they do not support.
Direct election also means the president would enjoy far more power. Ours is a disguised parliamentary system: the president is chosen by Parliament and can be removed by it. So can cabinet ministers.
Directly elected presidents can be removed between elections only by impeachment, which requires a two-thirds majority and is difficult to achieve. Their cabinet ministers answer to the president and also cannot be removed by Parliament.
So, this change would still leave most voters without a say in choosing the head of government and it would give the person chosen by a small minority more power. This means less democracy, not more.
If we really want people to have a say in choosing the president, we need a system that allows party supporters to choose their party’s candidates — and that means party primaries.
People who wanted a say in choosing a party leader would need to register as a party supporter. This would allow them to choose its candidate: hopefuls would campaign for voters among their party’s supporters, not simply among the connected. People would not have to ditch their parties to support their preferred candidate.
Is there any chance we might get primaries? There is support for primaries in the ANC, but its leadership is not keen. Their arguments are not particularly strong: secretary-general Gwede Mantashe has rejected them because “primaries produced Donald Trump”. But they also produced Barack Obama and Jeremy Corbyn. Mantashe’s argument is like saying we should not have elections because they sometimes produce winners we dislike.
Another argument is that primaries would not stop vote-buying and other ways of manipulating voters. True — but they would make them more difficult: it is harder to buy or bully millions who do not depend on party leaders than to do the same to tens of thousands who do. Primaries would not solve these problems, but would make it easier to combat them.
As Mantashe’s reaction shows, party leaders don’t much like primaries. Since there is no great public pressure for primaries, they can continue to maintain control by dismissing them.
But parties may soon find primaries are in their interest. The 2016 local elections suggest that voters who are unhappy with party leaders are no longer prepared to hold their nose and go along: the ANC lost hundreds of thousands of votes because supporters stayed at home. It could pay dearly if it fights the 2019 election with leaders voters do not like.
If parties ignore voters when they choose candidates, voters might just decide to ignore them.
IF WE WANT PEOPLE TO HAVE A SAY IN CHOOSING THE PRESIDENT, WE NEED A SYSTEM THAT ALLOWS SUPPORTERS TO CHOOSE THEIR PARTY’S CANDIDATES
Friedman is research professor with the humanities faculty of the University of Johannesburg.