Winners, Losers and the Playing Field in Southern Africa's ‘Democratic Darlings’: Botswana and South Africa Compared

Abstract

Botswana and South Africa are often hailed as Southern Africa's democratic darlings. These democracies, however, occur within the context of dominant party systems; one party dominates over a prolonged period in an ostensibly democratic system. The Botswana Democratic Party has ruled since 1965, while the African National Congress has governed since 1994. This paper aims to ascertain what happens to opposition parties within dominant party systems, using Levitsky and Way [2010. “Why Democracy Needs a Level Playing Field.” Journal of Democracy 21 (1): 57–68] theory of an ‘uneven playing field,’ where democratic competition is undermined less by electoral fraud or repression than by unequal access to state institutions, resources and the media. The leaders of key opposition parties in both countries have been interviewed. It is subsequently argued that opposition parties are weakened by the dominant party system context, and so declaring their elections as ‘fair’ becomes problematic. Despite this, some of the opposition parties have adopted a number of strategies to remain relevant: cooperation, coalition and co-optation.

Acknowledgements

The authors thank Willie Breytenbach and Ian Taylor for their comments.

Notes

Botswana held its first national democratic elections in 1965, in preparation for independence from Britain in 1966.

Freedom House annually rates states on two aspects—civil rights and political liberties—on a scale from 1 to 7, with 1 being the most free and 7 the least. States must score an average of 2.5 or less over the two ratings to be considered ‘free’, as opposed to ‘partly free’ (an average of 3–5) or ‘not free’ (5.5–7).

While statistics differ depending on the data sources used, SA's Gini coefficient has been above 0.65 since 1993. Botswana, though not quite as starkly unequal, has been between 0.5 and 0.6, which has risen since the 1980s (see Siphambe 2012).

Responsible for 40% of the country's jobs, the government is Botswana's biggest employer (Throup 2011, 7).

Such reforms suggest the impact of the democratisation of neighbour countries such as SA, where elections are overseen by a fully independent IEC.

A look at the ANC's official website (www.anc.org.za) is revealing, where its banner reads ‘South Africa's Liberation Movement’. According to Kotzé (2011, 154) the ‘ANC refuses to call itself a political party and insists on being … a national liberation movement’.

Tenderpreneurship is a trend in SA, where politically connected business people acquire business through government tenders.

This was the end result of a court case where Idasa, an influential think-tank, challenged the practice of private funding in the Cape High Court in 2004–2005.

See Hitachi Power Africa's website at http://www.hitachi-power.co.za/en/about-hitachi-power-africa.html.

The Western Cape Province, under the leadership of the DA, has written a law for its province, prohibiting a public representative and his or her immediate family from doing business with government.

Buthelezi (2011) from the IFP acknowledges that declaring sources of private funding is the right thing to do, but ‘the unintended consequences of that would be that many people would not want to go on record’. Mazibuko (2011) also laments that if the DA decided to release its donors' names, the ANC could punish these donors.

McKaiser was a political analyst and presenter on SABC 3's Interface Talk Show. Apparently for being too forthright in his interviews, he was pressured to resign in 2011. Perlman, a seasoned journalist and news anchor resigned from the SABC in 2007, when he blew the whistle on political censorship within the SABC.

In November 2011, the National Assembly (NA), dominated by the ANC, passed the legislation, even though the opposition parties, in a united front, voted against it. The Bill (with amendments) was subsequently pushed through the National Council of Provinces in November 2012; and was thereafter passed in its amended form by the NA on the 25th of April 2013.

Mulder (2011) motivates the FF+'s role through having observed other smaller parties in Europe: ‘knowing that we will never be the majority … we are interested in coalitions or alliances with other parties. And that gives us the leverage to play a role’.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Nicola de Jager

Department of Political Science, Stellenbosch University, Stellenbosch, South Africa. Email: [email protected].

Cara H. Meintjes

Department of Political Science, Stellenbosch University, Stellenbosch, South Africa.