Getting the party started

How (not) to launch a party

Another week, another party lining up to contest 2024’s elections. After a week of (bizarre) speculation that he was about to join the DA as its “presidential candidate”, Roger Jardine has cobbled together some relatively well-known faces and started a party (“movement”) - Change Starts Now. I think the launch is a good case study for some of the problems and errors that have faced a lot of the newcomer parties being set up in the past couple years, so some thoughts on that here.

You need (some) policies…

An old tradition of South African politics is that parties should be “guided by the people”, and so policy formulation should be controlled by some kind of party consultation with the membership/base. It’s understandable that new parties tend to replicate the ANC model of formulating policy through conferences of the membership, but it ignores a few issues: firstly, the ANC is a massive organisation with a membership in the hundreds of thousands (a good portion of whom are even real people). Secondly, the ANC tends to ignore a lot of the policy it makes at its own conferences when in government when it’s impractical. But most importantly of all, you need some kind of identifying factor for your new party, something that will keep you in the news, get journalists to speak to you, and tell voters what you stand for. These are often termed “retail” policies, in that voters are buying what the parties are selling.

And yet, most parties launch themselves with a vaguely sketched out programme with no distinguishing ideas. Being anti-corruption or pro-growth or anti-ANC is all very nice and popular with many voters, but it’s not exactly original. In fact, the field is increasingly crowded in the spot a lot of new parties are pitching themselves (centrist to centre-right opposition to the ANC). You have a very limited chance to stick in voters’ memories, almost all of which is going to be concentrated on when you launch your party. It’s a massive waste of this attention to defer policy choices to some later “convention” or conference. Both Change Starts Now and Rise Mzansi launched with little policy substance to speak of, to their detriment. I would wager that most voters can’t think of a single issue where either party stands out - which means they’ll probably vote for bigger parties with better name recognition. One of ActionSA’s earliest pitches, which probably accounts for a lot of their success, was related to migration - a key campaigning point in Gauteng, which most big parties try to at least touch on. But big parties cannot go as far as ActionSA (or indeed, the Patriotic Alliance) on controversial issues, so ActionSA became the party of choice for many voters who want a crackdown on migration. The early issue that defined the EFF was Marikana, which still shows up in the voter data on South Africa’s platinum belt¹.

…Unless you’ve got a good campaigner

Of course, there is a more obvious route to a recognisable party: have a recognisable leader. The two most successful new parties since COPE (the EFF and ActionSA) have both had instantly recognisable leaders who are good at campaigning. Of course, both Malema and Mashaba had stints in larger parties, which gave them the profile to launch their parties. But they also had the political savvy to know when and how to pitch their parties, and when to make noise about policies. Mmusi Maimane, for example, had plenty of name recognition when he split off the DA, but he did not have Mashaba’s instinct to jump before he was pushed. His ouster made him look weak, whereas Mashaba completely controlled the narrative leading up to his resignation, establishing him as a credible politician in his own right. The Malema/Mashaba route is very effective when available, but most new political entrepreneurs don’t have the exposure of having held public office or a senior political position, which makes it unlikely they can successfully implement this strategy. Roger Jardine and Songezo Zibi, whilst well-known enough in business and press circles, are not household names. They cannot command the kind of coverage that Malema and Mashaba do.

Recruitment matters

If your profile as a party leader and your chosen policies aren’t enough to keep your party in the news, your ability to bring on people who can is key. Mavuso Msimang’s very public resignation from the ANC has certainly increased the coverage of Change Starts Now, even if he does not bring a huge constituency with him². Who you can recruit also shapes which voters you should target. Malema’s ouster from the ANC with many fellow Youth League leaders allowed him to credibly pitch the EFF as 1) a party for the youth and 2) a party for disaffected ANC voters who were swinging left. Herman Mashaba managed to sign on many high-profile elites from the DA’s ‘social liberal’ wing (somewhat purged from the party leadership post-Maimane) - Athol Trollip and Bongani Baloyi (temporarily) were clever signings to indicate who the party was “for”. Recruiting from civil society is a viable strategy, but the recruits need to be skilled at political communication and represent some possible constituency of voters.

If you have the cash

I am perhaps being a bit unfair by not mentioning another key factor in the rise of the EFF and ActionSA: both had lots of money to get themselves started. Herman Mashaba was wealthy enough to provide the capital to get ActionSA off the ground, and Malema had the funding networks to launch the EFF. Money is not only useful to pay for all the costs involved in setting up and marketing the party, but also as a way to get promising politicians into the party “on retainer”, paying them some salary until they can be elected. It’s unclear what kind of resources Roger Jardine can mobilise, despite rumours he has substantial donor backing. Running a proper national election campaign requires in the tens of millions of rands, and only a handful of parties have this kind of firepower.

Parties are brands

I have ignored more mundane critiques of new parties up to here, but I could not conclude this piece without mentioning that name and branding are important to parties. Change Starts Now and Rise Mzansi are not particularly catchy names, nor does either party have the branding power of the EFF’s red uniform. These might seem like minor critiques, but survival as a new party is all about making voters remember you. Associating yourself with a colour or symbol is a common practice. And yet, none of the recently launched parties have made themselves especially memorable in brand or in policy. You might be inclined to argue that being uncontroversial makes their pool of voters wider, but I think it has the opposite effect. No one votes for a party they don’t remember³.

1. See this interesting paper from De Kadt, Johnson-Kanu & Sands. Of course, there were other policies associated with the EFF early on, mostly from the ANCYL platform Malema & co. had built - nationalisation of the mines and land expropriation highest up. But I think Marikana earned the EFF recognition as a serious political player.

2. I should note here that Msimang has not formally joined CSN, but has merely “consulted” with Jardine

3. It’s too early, of course, to say that Change Starts Now won’t see any success next year. But the way they have started off places them at an automatic disadvantage.