From ActionSA to MK, the curious candidates of the local elections

With all parties now having submitted their final lists of candidates (with one rather embarrassing exception…), one can now see what their priorities are and assess some of the choices they have made.

In many cases they show that some parties appear a little desperate, or make choices that are not easy to understand. In Cape Town, for example, ActionSA has transplanted Dereleen James as its mayoral candidate.

She became an activist against drug-related crimes and addiction in Eldorado Park in Gauteng, before catching the attention of President Cyril Ramaphosa. This led to her garnering an important profile and then joining ActionSA and now representing them in Parliament.

But there is no evidence of her having any kind of constituency in Cape Town. And while she argues that many of the problems facing residents in parts of Cape Town and Eldorado Park are similar, there are still important regional differences.

If she were certain of victory she would have already resigned her seat as an MP to allow someone else from ActionSA to take her place.

This she has not done.

In Ekurhuleni, ActionSA has picked a TV star as its mayoral candidate. Xolani Khumalo became famous for filming his illegal raids that used violence against people who community members told him were dealing in drugs. He’s faced a series of charges involving violence and, at one stage, murder (these have so far been withdrawn).

While he may have a track record in the community of that metro, he has no history of political activism before Herman Mashaba selected him as a mayoral candidate.

The EFF has also selected a person with very little political history to represent it in the crucial race for Joburg. While the EFF is unlikely to win the most votes in Joburg, given the nature of coalitions, it may well be able to win the position of deputy mayor or perhaps Member of the Mayoral Committee for Finance.

Dr Tlaleng Mofokeng has a long record as a public health activist and is the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Health.

She faced an inquiry by the Health Professions Council of SA (HPCSA) for social media comments she made about Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. While the remarks involve swearing and are incredibly personal, she also described the UN Watch Executive Director Hillel Neuer as: “You white man. Evil scum. Voetsek.”

Controversially, she is being represented in this case by the NGO SECTION27 (see the criticism and the NGO’s response) who are paying for her legal fees. On Wednesday, 9 September, the HPCSA’s unprofessional conduct finding against Mofokeng was overturned.

While she certainly has a public profile and admirable track record in the health sector, again, she has very little political experience.

In eThekwini, the MK party first made a curious choice.

Instead of numerous people with long track records in the City, including the former ANC mayor there, Zandile Gumede, they picked Zandile Hlophe-Mkhwanazi, the co-founder of an NGO focusing on women in the tech space.

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There is no evidence of her having any personal constituency. 

As late as Wednesday afternoon, it appeared MK had defied expectations and been a sea of calm compared with what was happening in the ANC.

However, the curtain was torn off the gale by a statement on Wednesday evening, in which MK leader Jacob Zuma said there had been “manipulation” of party lists and that Hlophe-Mkhwanazi was being removed.

Instead, she was being replaced with Mxolisi Phakathi, who Zuma referred to as an “apostle” because of his role in the Twelve Apostles’ Church in Christ.

However, as News24’s Qaanitah Hunter has pointed out, support for MK has nothing really to do with its choice of candidates and everything to do with Zuma, ethnicity and patronage networks. 

Another interesting choice is that of the African Transformation Movement. They’ve selected the Uzalo actor Mjimiseni Jimmy Magubane as their candidate for a ward in eThekwini. 

Even parties that claim to check and double-check their candidates’ histories have had problems with this process. On Wednesday, News24 reported the DA had included a person who previously lied to the party about his qualifications on their list.

Abdulkader “AK” Elyas is fourth on their PR list for Cape Town despite previously claiming to be a doctor when he was not.

Political churn

All of this reveals much about many of our parties.

In some cases, Mofokeng for the EFF or Khumalo for ActionSA, for example, suggest that the way to become a mayoral candidate is not through the party structures, but through having made a name for yourself elsewhere.

In the process, it is likely that people who had worked for those parties in those structures were overlooked in the hopes that the name recognition would prove a hook with voters.

Those people are likely to simply leave. Why stay if there is no prospect of you ever becoming the candidate yourself?

For MK, it seems that the choice of mayoral candidate just doesn’t really matter. Some people, like Hlophe-Mkhwanazi, might have been selected simply so they can be elbowed aside at will. But for MK, the real story is anger and frustration at President Cyril Ramaphosa and ethnicity.

In the case of the Magubane, the ATM’s candidate, it appears to be a hope for name recognition in a city where there are many much bigger players.

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All of this shows how within many of our smaller parties there is a high level of churn. People come and go and often do not stay in the party for any length of time. This then prevents the party from growing and relegates them to being bit players in our politics (unless they get to be a kingmaker in coalitions).

All of this also reveals one of the strengths of the two other big players, the ANC and the DA. Despite their internal issues, they do at least have people with long track records in our politics, often in their local communities.

During any kind of door-to-door campaigning, and even in an era of campaigning-by-WhatsApp, they will be known to the people they are engaging with.

And this is one of the reasons that, barring the example of MK, new and smaller parties may be unlikely to make a big dent in these elections. DM