Small parties and independents – from also-rans to kingmakers
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Date
2012
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
SUN Press
Abstract
Small parties and independents play an important role in South Africa’s democracy. It
is on the level of the local that these small parties and independents have some chance
to make indents in terms of winning a few wards that could turn them into council
kingmakers, or at least represent some particular local constituency needs. This chapter
examines the multitude of small and micro-parties, as well as independent candidates
in the 2011 local government elections. It first features classification-based endeavours
to ‘make sense of this multitude of often-neglected but crucial political players in South
Africa’. The classifications use the number of contesting candidates and election outcomes
as the two classificatory principles. The chapter also explores the increase in contestation
by independent candidates. Thereafter it investigates the details of their results, and the
reasons for their largely dismal displays in local election 2011. The chapter concludes that
while these political actors remain largely in an underworld of small and micro-parties, they
retain enthusiasm for electoral contestation, thus continuing to add value to multi-party
democracy in South Africa.
Description
Keywords
Independents, Democracy, Local government elections, Multi-party democracy
Citation
Africa, C. & van Rooyen, G. (2012). Small parties and independents – from also-rans to kingmakers. In S. Booysen (ed). Local elections in South Africa: parties, people, politics. Bloemfontein: Sun Press, pp191-207