The Independent Electoral Commission has finally revealed details of donations made to political parties in SA, and the numbers are, er, well, they’re definitely numbers.
Under the Political Party Funding Act, in force since April this year, all parties must declare any donation above R100,000, and on Thursday the IEC put its cards — and receipts — on the table.
For those of us who expected the loot to look like the contents of a storage unit in Breaking Bad, however, there was disappointment, with figures less Walter White the drug lord than Walter White the high school teacher, as just three parties declared a combined total of a mere R30m cobbled together over the last quarter.
According to the IEC, the ANC declared individual donations of R10.7m.
The DA declared R15.9m, R15m of which came from a single donation from Mary Slack, daughter of Harry Oppenheimer.
Herman Mashaba’s ActionSA come in third, declaring R3.3m.
Of course, whether these amounts reflect reality is debatable. For example, I simply can’t believe that the ANC, which still holds every lever of power and almost every state tender, pulled in 30% less than the DA, which doesn’t have a hope of being in national government any time this decade.
By international standards, likewise, these seem like fantastically paltry sums.
To be fair, I can imagine that a party like the African Transformation Movement might be struggling to lure in the punters at the moment.
According to Open Secrets, the Trump Make America Great Again Committee, Trump Victory and the Biden Victory Fund pulled in a collective total of just under R27bn in 2020 alone.
Yes, the US economy is 40 times larger than SA’s, and political fundraising is a blood sport over there, but if the IEC’s figures represent anything close to the truth, it means that just three US lobby groups, supporting just two parties, raked in over 200 times the amount (averaged over four quarters) than our entire political fundraising system.
At first glance I have to say it doesn’t seem to add up.
And things looked even murkier after the IEC dropped the genuinely startling revelation that not one of SA’s other 502 parties declared a donation over R100,000.
To be fair, I can imagine that a party like the African Transformation Movement might be struggling to lure in the punters at the moment, what with potential benefactors having to funnel their cash in more urgent directions like lawyers and private hospitals.
But is the EFF seriously asking us to believe that doesn’t have a single blesser willing to drop 100k on it? Honestly, what’s the point of protecting the looters of VBS if none of them will repay the favour with some stolen dosh?
Likewise, what is the Stellenbosch Mafia even for if it can’t sling some sweet, sweet Broederbond tong at the Freedom Front Plus?
As for the DA, it might have come in at the top of the donor list, but what are we to make of its claim that its total haul from people who weren’t Mary Slack was a piddling R900,000?
No, I’m afraid it’s all clearly a bit of a farce, and we are about to enter a new phase of South African politics: discovering the extent to which political parties use fronts, surrogates, or simply suitcases full of cash to stay alive.
During its briefing, the IEC promised South Africans that it would be monitoring fake news during the next few months. I’m sure they did their best, but I’m afraid most of Thursday’s numbers are about as fake as fake gets.
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