Changes to the political party funding act.

[Againstthegrains]

I come from a scientific research background, where researchers are becoming critically aware of the concept of conflict of interest when one conducts and publishes research. For example, if you do a study that shows that drug A is better than drug B, and you have any commercial interest (conflict of interest) in drug A, e.g. you have shares in the company, or the study/ laboratory/ Institute is funded by the manufacturers of drug A, you must state it on the publication, to make the readers aware that there is potential for the study design/ tone of writing/ selective content/wording to be engineered in a manner that favours drug A.

I decided for arguments sake, to look at the political party funding models around the world and in ZA, and see where we can make improvements. How does one fund a political party without introducing strong conflicts of interest?

Our current system is a disaster, because the bulk of party funding comes from a limited number of influential individuals/organisations who have strong conflicts of interest. For example, if Patrice Matsepe's Rainbow Minerals donates millions to the ANC, there is an expectation that he will be granted favorable mineral rights/waver of environmental impact restrictions/ immunity from labour disputes etc on their operations. Or if one of Putin's oligarch friends use their SA operations to fund the ANC in exchange for a lucrative nuclear deal. Or even Mary Oppenheimer who is fed up with the ruling party decides to pump money into opposition parties.

For me the main weakness of this system is that the parties focus is drawn away from the people they serve and are instead drawn towards serving the interests of a select few. It is easier to approve a mineral right or sign a nuclear deal than it is to effectively manage the services of 60 million people.

We need to recreate a system where party funding is reconnected to the needs of the people. If for example a system was set up so that political parties can only be funded by individual citizens and with limits on how much can be donated (a few thousand) per person per year, it means that no individual will be able to wield the kind of influence that the "super donors" currently do. Parties will have to do a lot more leg work to engage the needs of their citizens. Fulfillment of political promises becomes more real to politicians in order to please the needs of ordinary people that put them in power.

The only problem with getting such a change made to the constitution, is that "Turkeys don't vote for Christmas." I don't think there is a single political party that wants to give up easy donor money in exchange for having to do a lot of performance based leg work on their electorate to raise funds.

Where such failures of democracy occur, countries such as Italy developed a referendum system, where the citizens may vote on issues outside of party politics. There was a landmark referendum a few years back where they voted to reduce the number of politicians in parliament and won. Viva Italia!!!

[DaavG]

Thank you for the post, interesting reading!

[oafpatroll]

The pessimist in me says that changes to the law aren't going to do anything. We have vast numbers of unenforced 'world class laws' from our constitution on down and it hasn't stopped 30 years of wholesale bare faced looting. The pigs will have to be wrested from the trough and replaced by people who give a fig about complying with laws before any more of the things will move us forward.

[Paul]

The pigs will have to be wrested from the trough and replaced by people who give a fig about complying with laws before any more of the things will move us forward.

I am in favour, at this stage, of poisoning the trough.

[MSW2]

I am in favour, at this stage, of poisoning the trough.

Or the species specific version of X from ear to eye and you put a .22 in the middle. And the hot water and scraping before the shot, not after as per the normal sequence of events.

[Againstthegrains]

That went south fairly quickly

[Dick]

I have just had an instructive exchange with my local DA ward councillor, the most recent exchange of e mails today. The history is that a new political party was recently started that is related, without going into extraneous detail at this point, to the Western Cape independence initiative. Alan Winde, who as premier of the WC, is the only person who may call a referendum, has refused to do so despite overwhelming support for it because the DA is against it. The Referendum Party was started with the specific purpose of forcing the DA's hand by taking votes from it. A new party needed until recently 7000 signatures for registration at the IEC. The IEC told the Referendum Party several months ago that electronic signatures were OK. Then, just one week before deadline the IEC said that only wet ink signatures will do, and that 13200 signatures will be needed. The IEC wouldn't have done that without orders from the ANC and there's little room for doubt that it was done to obstruct the independence initiative. But, as I pointed out to my DA councillor, the independence issue is less important than the anti democratic angle in which very substantial public opinion is being stifled. My DA councillor confirmed my suspicion that the DA had not and will not object to this stifling of a legitimate party. The tone of his response indicated complete satisfaction with it. So much for the much boasted democratic values of the DA. Also, though it is not apropos to my main point, I had quoted Dr Mulder and Prof Hamman in response to his insistence that secession is constitutionally impossible. His response was that the knowledge of those two august gentlemen is "clearly woefully inadequate" despite both being acknowledged specialists in constitutional law. Howzat for contempt. Like I said, so much for the DA.

[oafpatroll]

Theres no perfect in people or politics but I can assure you that if you didn't live in the WC you'd hanker after a da government. Our muppety faith in the IEC stems from the same kind of delusion that had people swooning over the 'new dawn' salesman.

[Againstthegrains]

I have just had an instructive exchange with my local DA ward councillor, the most recent exchange of e mails today. The history is that a new political party was recently started that is related, without going into extraneous detail at this point, to the Western Cape independence initiative. Alan Winde, who as premier of the WC, is the only person who may call a referendum, has refused to do so despite overwhelming support for it because the DA is against it. The Referendum Party was started with the specific purpose of forcing the DA's hand by taking votes from it. A new party needed until recently 7000 signatures for registration at the IEC. The IEC told the Referendum Party several months ago that electronic signatures were OK. Then, just one week before deadline the IEC said that only wet ink signatures will do, and that 13200 signatures will be needed. The IEC wouldn't have done that without orders from the ANC and there's little room for doubt that it was done to obstruct the independence initiative. But, as I pointed out to my DA councillor, the independence issue is less important than the anti democratic angle in which very substantial public opinion is being stifled. My DA councillor confirmed my suspicion that the DA had not and will not object to this stifling of a legitimate party. The tone of his response indicated complete satisfaction with it. So much for the much boasted democratic values of the DA. Also, though it is not apropos to my main point, I had quoted Dr Mulder and Prof Hamman in response to his insistence that secession is constitutionally impossible. His response was that the knowledge of those two august gentlemen is "clearly woefully inadequate" despite both being acknowledged specialists in constitutional law. Howzat for contempt. Like I said, so much for the DA.

Thanks, an interesting post. As a WC resident, I do feel that the unabated disintegration of the rest of the country is a good reason to become a separatist. So back on the subject of conflict of interest, what is the DA's conflict of interest in this regard?

Is there a financial benefit to the DA remaining part of a greater ZA, or is it simply, that they need the WC to as a marketing tool to demonstrate to the rest of ZA how much better they can govern than other parties?

[Stevin]

I come from a scientific research background, where researchers are becoming critically aware of the concept of conflict of interest when one conducts and publishes research. For example, if you do a study that shows that drug A is better than drug B, and you have any commercial interest (conflict of interest) in drug A, e.g. you have shares in the company, or the study/ laboratory/ Institute is funded by the manufacturers of drug A, you must state it on the publication, to make the readers aware that there is potential for the study design/ tone of writing/ selective content/wording to be engineered in a manner that favours drug A.

I decided for arguments sake, to look at the political party funding models around the world and in ZA, and see where we can make improvements. How does one fund a political party without introducing strong conflicts of interest?

Our current system is a disaster, because the bulk of party funding comes from a limited number of influential individuals/organisations who have strong conflicts of interest. For example, if Patrice Matsepe's Rainbow Minerals donates millions to the ANC, there is an expectation that he will be granted favorable mineral rights/waver of environmental impact restrictions/ immunity from labour disputes etc on their operations. Or if one of Putin's oligarch friends use their SA operations to fund the ANC in exchange for a lucrative nuclear deal. Or even Mary Oppenheimer who is fed up with the ruling party decides to pump money into opposition parties.

For me the main weakness of this system is that the parties focus is drawn away from the people they serve and are instead drawn towards serving the interests of a select few. It is easier to approve a mineral right or sign a nuclear deal than it is to effectively manage the services of 60 million people.

We need to recreate a system where party funding is reconnected to the needs of the people. If for example a system was set up so that political parties can only be funded by individual citizens and with limits on how much can be donated (a few thousand) per person per year, it means that no individual will be able to wield the kind of influence that the "super donors" currently do. Parties will have to do a lot more leg work to engage the needs of their citizens. Fulfillment of political promises becomes more real to politicians in order to please the needs of ordinary people that put them in power.

The only problem with getting such a change made to the constitution, is that "Turkeys don't vote for Christmas." I don't think there is a single political party that wants to give up easy donor money in exchange for having to do a lot of performance based leg work on their electorate to raise funds.

Where such failures of democracy occur, countries such as Italy developed a referendum system, where the citizens may vote on issues outside of party politics. There was a landmark referendum a few years back where they voted to reduce the number of politicians in parliament and won. Viva Italia!!!

*Mark Slack, as per her married name.

Otherwise carry on.