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A few months ago, I met Kanthan Pillay, who was collecting signatures to start a new political party – the Capitalist Party of South Africa, which we now know as the Purple Cow.
He reminded me of someone I met before our second national democratic election, who introduced himself as a cyborg, and then asked me to sign up so he could register his political party – one that would speak for the trees in Parliament.
He told me that we were not the only living things on Earth, and that human decisions were made from a selfish point of view with no regard for other living beings.
If his party won the election, he said, it would be illegal to cut trees down for human use.
Wouldn’t that be bad for the economy, I asked.
“No, it could only be good,” he said, “because there would be less work, less greed, less crime, less stress, less sickness and less hospitalisation.”
Partypreneurs, or people who start new political parties, are good for democracy.
Some, like Patricia de Lille of the Good party, are serial partypreneurs – no different from Tesla’s Elon Musk, who is a serial entrepreneur.
She first cashed in a few years after she started the Independent Democrats by making her party defunct and moving over to the DA and becoming mayor of Cape Town in return – good deal.
Who knows what loot Good will bring her.
There is a certain cuteness about the website of the ATM party, or African Transformation Movement, which calls for us to “Putsa 1st”, which stands for put South Africans first.
It’s also an acronym for what the party says it wants – peace, ubuntu, transformation, servant leadership and accountability.
Read: Manyi's ATM adds prayer to campaign strategy
The ATM’s campaign has the look and feel of innocence, and perhaps it is their naivety that makes them look like they mean what they say.
It did not harm the ATM when it got crowd-puller Mzwanele Manyi to join it.
Come May 8, which is the beginning of the second week after pay day, many people will certainly remember a name like ATM.
Yes, every election has a joker. Hlaudi Motsoeneng’s African Content Movement (ACM) has that distinction this time.
Read: Hlaudi with a chance of becoming SA president?
It was hard to find the ACM’s website. When I finally got to acmovement.org.za, I was shown this message: “Dear client, your domain has been suspended.”
It is tough being a partypreneur.
We also need to be hypervigilant during election time.
When I was looking for the webpage belonging to the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC), I typed in iec.org.za and my browser sent up this message: “This website may be impersonating ‘iec.org.za’ to steal your personal or financial information. You should go back to the previous page.”
I hope the IEC looks into this as soon as possible. Rather go to elections.org.za.
On the other hand, there is also very little creativity on the ballot paper as there are at least 11 parties that start with the word ‘African’.
It may be a patriotic thing to do, but it makes it much harder for the party to stand out.
It will also be difficult for the Economic Emancipation Forum (another EFF) to stand out next to the Economic Freedom Front; sorry, I always make that mistake, I meant to say Economic Freedom Fighters.
To try to differentiate itself, the Economic Emancipation Forum calls itself the EcoForum, but brands have a life of their own and people shorten them to suit themselves – not necessarily the way the party leaders want.
Then take a look at the parties’ slogans.
The ANC’s “Grow South Africa Together” is very lame. It may make sense in English, but it makes no sense in African languages.
You can grow a city because you can see its boundaries expand, but a country? Do you annex the neighbouring territories?
Julius Malema and the EFF could have done better than copying Robert Sobukwe’s “Son of the Soil”.
As for the DA’s “One South Africa for All” – wasn’t that the campaign slogan against the homeland system?
I wonder what happened to the cyborg; he had the most cogent message after all.
Kuzwayo is the founder of Ignitive, an advertising agency
