A cornerstone of democracy is the political party – an organisation with a set of principles and policies prescribed by the party congress and party executive committee. At every level of governance in a democracy the elected representatives of the party act as a caucus. The party caucus assembles before the actual municipal, provincial or central government meeting, and discusses the agenda; measures the agenda items against the party’s principles and policies; and then decide how the party members will vote during the discussion of the agenda item.
How this is eroding the right of the citizens the representatives claim to serve, is easy to understand when considering the next hypothesis:
A Parliament consisting of 200 members must decide on an issue like property rights. The majority party holds 120 seats. The party caucus thus consists of 120 party members. Say 70 of these hold a certain view on property rights. After voting in caucus, the remaining 50 must ascribe to the party policies and vote with the majority in the caucus. When the issue comes to the vote in Parliament, the 70 majority in caucus’ views prevail.
That is not the democracy the “democrats” want the public to see.
In all absurdity (with a majority vote of 50% plus 1) it can be as bad as 51 members controlling a 200-strong Parliament.
Another shortcoming of the party political system is that it encourages a ruling elite. Merit, talent, experience, knowledge all take a back-seat against loyalty to the party. Loyalty to the party structures and leaders takes priority. Examples of this is numerous:\- – A party loyalist becoming the Minister of Law and Order despite never having served as a law enforcement officer; then being deployed as Minister of Health; eventually ending up as Minister of Foreign Affairs. These men are then the policy makers for the specific state department. Absurd!
– A party loyalist who started as party organiser eventually being elected as President (PW Botha) with all the resulting splits in parties, unreasonable political measures, states of emergency.
– A party loyalist during the “struggle against Apartheid” serving as Minister in the ANC government whether he/she has the ability or not. This is when little pearls of wisdom like the legalising of abortion appears at the same time as the abolition of the death penalty; when cigarette smoke is declared public enemy number one while marijuana is decriminalised.
Political parties are also prone to abuse by a selected few and from dubious characters and organisations from within. Very few political parties are not eventually infiltrated by secret societies and wealthy pressure groups.
Democrats can never deny that democracy’s pillar, the political party, is also the main underminer of the very ideology it is supposed to serve.
The political party is enemy number one for the individual.
The doctrine and mandate dictates that the majority party has authority to carry out all its policies. James Madison in his Federalist Paper of 1787 already pointed out that the system is flawed because, while the majority may support some policies, they do not necessarily support all policies, yet the political party gets a mandate to implement all policies.
Neil McNaughton (Success in Politics, John Murray Publishers 1996) points out the obvious that Parliaments are controlled and dominated by the majority party in a democratic system. In effect the legislative agenda is controlled by party managers, and committees headed and controlled by the party faithful – almost no private, independent thought or creativity come into play in Parliament.
• Appointment of all grades of ministers, provincial administrators, chairpersons of committees and semi-sate organs is in the hands of the party leadership. This power of patronage ensures loyalty to such leaders and the party.
• The system is clearly unfair and discriminates against minorities and smaller parties by not giving equal value to all voters. The electorate must put up with the choices of a small group of party activists. It encourages tactical voting where voters feel forced to vote for a party they do not really support (the lesser evil) to keep out another party. Party politics is ideal for intimidation of the electorate, either directly or indirectly, because of the party structures which can be employed to spread rumours, advocate half-truths, right down to physical intimidation as in Kwazulu-Natal.
• The party exercises strict control over candidate lists. The loyal are rewarded. Where democracy is in need of a more dictatorial response, it is propped up with an indirect (proportional) “democratic” system, where direct representation of constituencies is abolished for proportional representation by persons loyal to the party bosses.
• In a party political system the line of accountability is too indirect to claim representation of the electorate. There is little or no feedback to the electorate, there is no moral obligation to represent the constituents according to their wishes or needs. Accountability rests with the political party for the party is the organ deciding on the representative’s future.
• Coat-tailing occurs in political parties all the time. This is the phenomenon where a popular candidate for a senior post may carry along lesser-known candidates without the merits or qualities to also be elected as is the case in the Democratic Alliance where Zille first tried Mazibuko, then Ramphele and then Maimane. In the Freedom Front it is even more pronounced because it has taken on the form of family affairs.
• The financial bandwagon plays a major part in party politics. Not only are the party as an institution open to interference by its major sponsors, but the leadership of the party is prone to greed supported by appointment to various money-bearing positions because of loyalty to another and not because of merit, experience or skills. All the major parties in South Africa are opposed to the disclosure of their sponsors.
• Conclusion: Any political system based on party politics (be it democracy or communism) is open for abuse, misrepresentation and discrimination against the electorate they claim to represent. The political party is the ideal organ to undermine equality, human needs and wants and the permanent exclusion of man to shape his own destiny. Even those political parties claiming to advance the ideals of man, know fully well that they are wolves in sheep’s clothing, pretending to be friendly to entice voters, but in reality hostile to all who do not subscribe to the party’s doctrines. The political party is a monster with a life of its own – while owing its existence solely to the support of voters, it is also the greatest threat of the freedoms of those very voters. Again the DA is a prime example of that: within days of them enticing voters with soothing sounds, their true colours regarding Afrikaans, street names, land distribution and other policies came out.
• FRONT NATIONAL’S ARGUMENTS:
1. Political parties are in nature prejudiced, discriminatory and prone to corruption and nepotism.
2. Any system with ulterior motives (party doctrines or pressure groups) cannot benefit the electorate.
3. Any system where one man is given a mandate to represent another unconditionally and without a clause of withdrawal of the social contract cannot be tolerated. No man can be given absolute power with no accountability.
FRONT NATIONAL has, since it’s birth, advocated two very important principles:
• that all representatives of FN will be subjected to “recall”, namely that a party congress can remove any representative from office with a 50% plus one vote where the representative is inactive or not true to the principles of self-determination;
• that every representative on all three levels of government, if elected, has to spend his energy towards self-determination and the well-being of the white supporter from European descent; and NOT towards the maintenance of the present multicultural system and its organs.
Hannes Engelbrecht
Read the original article on Front Nasionaal SA – blad
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