Whether an Amupapa or a BUM, it’s going to be a party

TIRED of having to choose between the same old parties every election? Put off by the “My stadium is fuller than yours” mentality of the ANC, the DA and the EFF?

Is the sight of red overalls too revolting for you? Do you think Mmusi Maimane should have stayed in the pulpit and given up on being the Obama of Soweto? Or have you lost your taste for politics due to President Jacob Zuma’s standard “It wasn’t me” response?

Why not take a look at the weirdly named other parties that will be trying their luck at a municipality near you on August 3?

According to the Independent Electoral Commission, 206 parties are registered for the local government elections.

The highest number, 77, are registered in the Western Cape. Limpopo has the second-most, at 56, followed by Gauteng with 45.

But it is the names of some of the new and smaller parties that are likely to leave voters in stitches at the voting booth.

If you are in Johannesburg, among the options available to you is the Appropriate Mutual Understanding Patriotic Party. Abbreviated, it is known as Amupapa.

For disciples of Marx’s doctrine who are not convinced that good old Blade Nzimande is still red enough, there is the Bolsheviks Party of South Africa.

For those Joburgers still hoping to win the Lotto, the International Revelation Congress may be the answer.

You know of the DA, but if you are in Nelson Mandela Bay and are not interested in making Athol Trollip the mayor, you may want to consider the Alternative Democrats, or AD — DA spelt backwards. Its blue and white colours also look suspiciously like those of Maimane’s party.

In Cape Town another party uses the DA’s colours. It calls itself the Democratic Independent Party, suggesting it may have been set up by someone who has not decided whether to be for the DA or Cape Town mayor Patricia de Lille’s now defunct Independent Democrats.

There may be nothing wrong with the Botshabelo Unemployment Movement in Mangaung, but then its founders decided to abbreviate the name of this party — which is supposed to fight for the unemployed — as BUM. How politically incorrect.

Ever heard of the saying “Keeping up with the Khumalos”? Well, they have now established a whole political party just for themselves and they call it African Mantungwa Community. Mantungwa is a clan name for the Khumalos.

And then someone has registered the Truly Alliance in eThekwini. The emblem features the face of one elderly man. Who is he in alliance with?

Sport fans can vote for the Independent Sport Party.

If the SABC’s Hlaudi Motsoeneng ever leaves Faulty Towers for a career in politics, he probably won’t praise the Academic Congress Union. He complained recently that intellectuals and academics spend too much of their time reading “and not thinking”.

They say in Nelson Mandela’s South Africa no one admitted to ever supporting apartheid. Well, in Cape Town the National Party seems proud to be associated with the legacy of the Groot Krokodil.