For a few hours on Wednesday morning, as the news temporarily broke that COPE had been deregistered as a political party, its leader, the man who insists he’s the leader, and its 32 members faced the terrible prospect of keeping on doing nothing but no longer being paid to do it.
A couple of hours later, however, a collective sigh of relief murmured through the garden shed that is the party’s headquarters as it was revealed the COPE had been deregistered not as a political party but rather as a company.
Not everyone was happy about this. Party spokesperson Dennis Bloem waxed presidential, saying that he was “shocked” and that he was “never aware that COPE was registered as a company”.
I can sympathise. When you join the leadership of a political party in South Africa you know that it’s like a company. That, after all, is the reason you joined: to be an executive in an income-generating scheme that will ultimately make you rich. But while everybody in the party understands that it’s like a company, nobody would dream of saying out loud that it is a company.
As for literally registering as one, well, that’s so on the nose you might as well give up the whole charade and admit everything to the electorate, or at least those fractions of it that still haven’t seen through you.
It is some of the tiny parties, however, that are the real success stories, pulling in parliamentary salaries wildly out of proportion to anything they actually do.
Indeed, it’s an uncharacteristic blunder from a party that’s played the money-for-jam game better than most.
Of course, the ANC leads the table, having extracted by far the most wealth overall. The EFF, likewise, punches above its weight, pulling in serious money while doing almost nothing for it.
It is some of the tiny parties, however, that are the real success stories, pulling in parliamentary salaries wildly out of proportion to anything they actually do.
Some do it better than others. Patricia de Lille, for one, seems to have a particularly golden touch, parlaying GOOD’s pitiful 70,000 votes into a cabinet seat.
But I would argue that COPE has remained undefeated as the tiny party being paid the most to do the least, thanks to one particular statistical quirk of our electoral, namely, that not all parliamentary seats are worth the same.
The UDM, for example, had to win 78,000 votes in the last general election to claim two seats.
Automatic Teller Machine, sorry, African Transformation Movement bought, sorry, won its two seats with 76,000.
Even the magical De Lille had to win 70,000 votes to claim GOOD’s two seats.
But COPE? Its two seats — along with those two hefty parliamentary salaries — were handed to it by just 47,000 voters.
Yes, COPE has played the game and played it well. So well, in fact, that I’m wondering if this week’s kerfuffle was even a blunder.
Could it be that COPE has simply broken through to a whole new level of political craft and is now testing the limits of the money-for-jam ratio, trying to pin down exactly how few voters they need to keep the sweet, sweet cash rolling?
If only I could ask a COPE voter, but they’re all in the shed, urgently discussing the business of politics ...
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