REFILWE MEKOA
It is very difficult to break away from the ANC and establish yourself in politics with a set of sustainable policies.
This is according to political analyst, Theo Venter. He said politics in South Africa is not based on social issues, but on basic political principles. Venter’s statement is based on the lower election results that Congress of the People received in the recent general elections.
He said when the UDM was established in 1999 it received 4.5% of votes and in the next elections they imploded. Venter added that Cope had 7% of votes when they emerged in 2008 and declined to 0.6%. He predicted that that the Economic Freedom Fighters will follow in the same footsteps, unless they do things differently.
Venter said the country’s political system tends to be polarised. “It’s either, you’re on the one side or on the other, although our system makes room for a lot of political parties to function. The fact that we are a developing democracy and we are busy sorting out basic things such as how do we define our ethnicity, how we define and what are we doing about race issues and ethnic differences. They are very basic issues in politics that still exist and I think that makes it very difficult for small parties to sustainably survive over time,” he said.
Cope will receive three parliamentary seats from the 30 they got in 2009. In the Free State earlier this year some of its original founders publicly defected to the ANC and the move might be the reason that the results in the elections dropped from 11 percent in 2009 to 1.6 percent this year. Cope’s provincial secretary, Mzandile Hleko, says they haven’t given up hope as they still have councillors within various 20 municipalities.
The DA replaced Cope as official opposition in the provincial legislature, while the EFF will have more seats than both the Freedom Front Plus and Cope. Cope came fifth after the Freedom Front Plus.
Meanwhile, Cope was removed by the Democratic Alliance as the main opposition in the Northern Cape Province. The DA increased by 23.8 percent, up from 16.6 percent of the votes in the 2009 elections. Cope was also outdone by the EFF; it received nearly 5 percent, leaving Cope in fourth position with over 3 percent.
