FLOOR CROSSING HELPS ANC INCH TOWARD THREE-QUARTER

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 PRETORIA 003329 SIPDIS SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 09/19/2017 TAGS: PGOV SF SUBJECT: FLOOR CROSSING HELPS ANC INCH TOWARD THREE-QUARTER MAJORITY PRETORIA 00003329 001.2 OF 002 Classified By: Deputy Chief of Mission Donald Teitelbaum. Reasons 1.4( b) and (d). ¶1. (C) SUMMARY. South Africa's latest floor crossing period ended on 15 September with the lowest number of elected officials choosing to defect to other parties, leaving the distribution of political power virtually unchanged. The top three political parties -- the ruling African National Congress (ANC),Democratic Alliance (DA),and Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) -- gained little at the national level, while three smaller opposition parties disappeared. The political landscape at the local level, however, will change as a result, though much less dramatically than during previous floor crossing periods. Critics of floor crossing in a closed-list proportional system like South Africa's have been vocal, and even include some ANC members who feel the party is betraying its roots by accepting opposition members. Though many political pundits believe that 2007 could be known as the last time floor-crossing was allowed, it is uncertain the ANC would change a law that continues to benefit it, especially at the expense of the opposition. END SUMMARY. -------------- FLOOR CROSSING RESULTS IN A NUTSHELL -------------- ¶2. (SBU) South Africa's 15-day floor crossing period (1-15 September) witnessed the least number of defections since the legalization of floor crossing in 2002, leaving South Africa's distribution of power firmly in the hands of the African National Congress (ANC). As expected, the ruling ANC gained the most with four MPs (one from the Progressive Independent Movement (PIM),two from the United Independent Front (UIF),and one from the Independent Democrats (ID)) defecting to the ANC. Effectively, the ANC now holds almost 75 percent of Parliament with 297 out of 400 seats. The Democratic Alliance (DA) remains the second largest party with 47 seats, and the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) is third with 23 seats. The next largest party is the United Democratic Movement (UDM) with only six seats, followed by the Independent Democrats, Freedom Front Plus, African Christian Democratic Party, and the National Democratic Convention, all of which have four seats. The total number of political parties represented in Parliament now stands at 14, after the UIF, PIM, and the United Party of South Africa lost their representatives to other parties. ¶3. (SBU) At the local level, only 250 municipal councilors crossed party lines, compared to 486 in 2004 and 555 in 2002. The moves will affect the composition of 128 municipalities. Again, the ANC gained the most with 53 councilors, followed by two new parties, the African People's Convention (36 councilors) and the National People's Party (31 councilors). The biggest losers were the Pan Africanist Congress (41 lost),ID (27 lost),and National Democratic Convention (22 lost). Only 12 municipalities experienced a power shift as a result of floor crossing: the ANC gained control of five additional municipalities, while the IFP, DA, and NPP each has a majority in one, while four municipalities now have no majority. -------------- ETHICS OF FLOOR CROSSING QUESTIONED -------------- ¶4. (C) Over the past month, public opposition to floor crossing has intensified among think tank analysts, voters at large, and even some ANC members. According to Jonathan Faull at the Institute of Democracy in South Africa, floor crossing "undermines the will of the people, nullifies voter intentions, and encourages political expediency." In most democracies that allow floor crossing, MPs may defect but may not keep their seats unless voted in again in a by-election. Faull argues that because South Africans vote for a party (as opposed to an individual) in a closed-list system, parliamentary seats should stay within the party. ¶5. (C) Faull also argues that the rule that at least ten percent of a party's elected officials either in Parliament or a council must be willing to defect before any one member can protects large parties like the ANC and makes smaller parties vulnerable to political seduction, corruption, and cannibalism. Lower-echelon ANC members also have expressed anger over the politics of inducement, whereby members of opposition parties are lured to the ANC with high-salaried PRETORIA 00003329 002 OF 002 positions, calling the defectors "crosstitutes." The most notorious this round was serial-crosser Craig Morkel, PIM's sole MP, who the ANC accepted even though he was found guilty in 2005 of misusing about $6,000 in a parliamentary travel voucher fraud scheme called TravelGate. His acceptance ignited a slew of cartoons, one of which showed the ANC fishing for new members in a toilet. ¶6. (C) The rule also benefits opportunists who can hive off smaller parties to establish one-man political parties with no electoral support (as Morkel did when he realized he would lose his seat in the DA after being found guilty). According to Faull, this raises additional ethical questions because political parties in Parliament receive state funding without ever having earned a single vote. (NOTE: As leader of a party in Parliament, one is entitled to additional R50,000 ($7,000) in salary. One and two-person parties also enjoy an allowance for office staff of nearly R130,000 ($18,500), R90,000 (almost $13,000) for constituency allowances, and a share of parliamentary funding for research, typically around R100,000 ($14,285) END NOTE). -------------- TALKING OUT OF BOTH SIDES OF MOUTH -------------- ¶7. (SBU) The ANC, which has historically gained the most from floor crossing, defends the practice by painting critics as members of small opposition groups hurt by defections to the ANC and by pointing out that the DA was the first to call for the practice as a way to formally integrate the old Democratic Party and New National Party into the DA. To be fair, though the major opposition parties have criticized the practice, none has refused a defector, at least not on principle. Press reports note that twenty-one floor-crossing applications, which require confirmation that the new party is willing to accept them, were rejected after the Independent Electoral Commission discovered that the applicants were not elected officials. -------------- COMMENT -------------- ¶8. (C) Press reports note that Parliament will (at some point) discuss floor-crossing, at least as it is currently practiced. However, with the ANC deciding to leave floor crossing in place during the ANC's policy conference in June (by not taking a decision at all),floor crossing is unlikely to be banned by an ANC-led National Assembly. For now, the process continues to benefit the ANC, even if marginally, but more importantly at the expense of the opposition. Depending on how many parliamentary seats the ANC wins in the 2009 national elections, it could easily decide to continue with floor crossing in the hope that it secures or strengthens its parliamentary majority. Importantly, this would allow the ANC to easily push through legislation or even change the Constitution once it has a three-quarter majority. Perhaps ANC Chairman Mosioua Lekota revealed the ANC's position when he announced the four new MPs, saying "enough will be enough when all members of the South African Parliament are members of the ANC." Bost