Part 4: Election Campaigns: Requirements, Costs and Fundraising
How can we make South African politics more accessible?
In a series of posts over the past three weeks, we have set out the requirements, costs and fundraising challenges in seeking to build an effective nationwide party that can establish a national electoral footprint.
A short recap: In order to make a dent at national level, you need to be able to raise in excess of R50 million and to be able to raise that amount of money, you need to be well known or have a black book of wealthy connections.
R50 million, as eye-watering a sum as that may be, is barely a start in today’s political campaigns. Winning a considerable number of seats in a General Election or in a municipal election costs a lot more than R50 million: the IEC declarations may not necessarily paint that picture but to be competitive with the ‘big guys’ (ANC, DA, EFF,MK), you are looking at a budget of at least R100-R150 million.
Campaigns over the past decade for the big two parties have been rumoured to cost in the range of R400-R500 million. Nomvula Mokonyane infamously disclosed in 2016 that the ANC had spent in excess of R1 billion campaigning for that year’s municipal elections.
Despite some efforts to the contrary, being successful in South African politics does require money and a lot of it. That’s not to say that money alone buys success, but it is a necessary ingredient to empower your efforts.
This feature in our politics underscores how inaccessible South African politics is. Not to mention the structural barriers individuals, particularly women and youth face, the whole system is geared towards shutting out the vast majority of the population from having the option of forming a viable political party and being able to compete fairly. It is arguable that the current situation is unconstitutional: it is simply not possible for many South Africans to exercise their rights in terms of S19 of the Constitution to form and participate in political parties, or at the very least to engage in meaningful, fair competition.
How do we look at fostering a system where there is an equality of access to the ballot paper as well as a degree of a fair and level playing field? This has to be a key question if we are serious about reforming politics, inviting new actors and diversifying the faces we see on national, provincial and municipal benches.
This is the kind of key national dialogue that is needed right now. South Africans are not satisfied with their politicians. Numerous polls and the macro trends of turnout make that very clear. Time may be running out ahead of next year’s local government election, but it would be significant for the country’s future if key stakeholders – including those currently blocked from politics – convened to work out a way to give Section 19 of the Bill of Rights meaning.
We would love your comments, thoughts and proposals to take forward into a discussion on the ‘The Real National Dialogue’ podcast. In the meantime though, here are a few ideas to prompt further discussion.
Last week, the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) hosted a symposium on party funding in Durban. The purpose of the event was to mark four years of the coming into effect of the Political Party Funding Act and it aimed to “foster informed dialogue on the future of political funding and its impact on sustaining a healthy and inclusive multi-party democracy in our country.”
Speaking at the symposium, Finance Minister, Enoch Godongwana, advocated for full funding of political parties by the state, provided the fiscus could afford it. He averred that this would have the effect of curbing the influence of private donors on politics.
It is unlikely that such a proposal would land very well with voters, but it is an interesting consideration in that it would limit what political parties could spend during a campaign and introduce an element of fair competition. However, if the state funding was set according to how current piecemeal state funding works – in terms of which funding is largely allocated on the basis of how many seats a party has – such a system would merely reinforce the status quo. And it would become nigh on impossible for new entrants to join.
One option in this construct could be to look at a public funding mechanism that could provide seed funding for new parties based on a set of criteria such as party support through signatures, its business plan, Constitution etc. A bold proposal might be to tie the availability of seed funding to the proportion of women and youth any new party has in its leadership. Such determinations would presumably have to be made by some sort of state entity and there would be issues of subjectivity and impartiality.
Probably a far better option than the state funding route is to look at capping or standardising expenditure. Many democracies legislate to limit total election spending to ensure fair competition. South Africa should consider this: it still requires private funding and private donations, some will find it easier than others, but a relatively low spending cap could force parties to compete on ideas and their vision for the country. This would require either amending or introducing new legislation to specifically track what parties spend on campaigns and require them to comply with submitted audited campaign expenses – whether incurred by the party or third party friends and supporters.
Another important component in this discussion could be media access: there’s a lot to be said that when an election campaign officially starts, all parties that are contesting should start at the same level. That means that public broadcasters such as the SABC should allocate the same amount of time for coverage for every party, no matter how big they may have been in the previous parliament. Again, this would enable fair competition.
Given the increasing importance of digital spending in South African campaigns, can some of the tech companies be prevailed upon to provide a distribution of free advertising credits to political parties competing at national level. Or even offer free credits to parties contesting for the very first time?
The above are just some initial ideas in a discussion that we hope becomes far more widespread as we navigate the next few years until the General Election. We hope you have a few ideas to share with us, and we will discuss this on next week’s “The Real National Dialogue”.