South African Political Parties

[White Trash]

Which of the following parties in South Africa would you identify with?

Personally, I'd be a solid DA voter, but would also consider the IFP or the Nationals depending on the platform for that election. And if I'm feeling especially crotchety and if they tone down the rhetoric, the VF+ isn't a bad option either.

[SATW]

I'd support DA like you, Southern Gothic. Though, I don't know much about SA politics except that ANC is extremely corrupt.

[Dereich]

DA (White non-communist foreigner who is not receiving ANC patronage)

[White Trash]

I'd support DA like you, Southern Gothic. Though, I don't know much about SA politics except that ANC is extremely corrupt.

The best breakdown I can give you, is that the DA is somewhere between the German CDU and some of the more centrist Democrats here in the USA. A Moderate Hero party for South African Moderate Heroes. Just a half skip left of center. The party is made up of the various white and coloured anti-Apartheid groups from before the 1994 elections. The main issues with this party is the debate over social conservatism. Rural Afrikaners and Coloured voters regularly clash with the more urbane, cosmopolitan Anglo voters leading to some interesting factional infighting.

The ANC, as you said is very corrupt. But in addition to being corrupt, it is extremely bloated as well. While the party platform professes Democratic Socialism and Social Democracy, it's become almost a big tent in practice. Marthinus van Schalkwyk, the former leader of the dying National Party and a committed rural conservative, is now a standard bearer for the ANC. As you can imagine, trying to balance the needs of radical Pan-African nationalism and former Apartheid regime personnel can get troublesome leading to the formation of the next party:

The Economic Freedom fighters are mostly made up by former members of the ANC's radical Socialist wing and its youth wing led by Julius Malema. The party has a radical stance on wealth redistribution between the racial groups in SA in addition to an anti-American and anti-Western foreign policy. The rhetoric of the group is populist, almost Guevarist in nature with its call for agrarian reform and advocacy for guerrilla style politics.

The National Freedom Party is the usual "law and order" type party that mostly deals with crime related issues and urban issues in the Eastern Cape. They are something of a bumper-sticker party as they seem to be quite handy with catchphrases and mottos, but not so handy at actually putting together a coherent platform.

The Freedom Front Plus is the successor to the formerly dominant National Party. They have since rejected the concept of Apartheid and Afrikaner supremacy in favor of a softer Christian Conservatism and Afrikaner Nationalism with a focus on rural issues and a populist economic platform.

[SATW]

I'd support DA like you, Southern Gothic. Though, I don't know much about SA politics except that ANC is extremely corrupt.

The best breakdown I can give you, is that the DA is somewhere between the German CDU and some of the more centrist Democrats here in the USA. A Moderate Hero party for South African Moderate Heroes. Just a half skip left of center. The party is made up of the various white and coloured anti-Apartheid groups from before the 1994 elections. The main issues with this party is the debate over social conservatism. Rural Afrikaners and Coloured voters regularly clash with the more urbane, cosmopolitan Anglo voters leading to some interesting factional infighting.

The ANC, as you said is very corrupt. But in addition to being corrupt, it is extremely bloated as well. While the party platform professes Democratic Socialism and Social Democracy, it's become almost a big tent in practice. Marthinus van Schalkwyk, the former leader of the dying National Party and a committed rural conservative, is now a standard bearer for the ANC. As you can imagine, trying to balance the needs of radical Pan-African nationalism and former Apartheid regime personnel can get troublesome leading to the formation of the next party:

The Economic Freedom fighters are mostly made up by former members of the ANC's radical Socialist wing and its youth wing led by Julius Malema. The party has a radical stance on wealth redistribution between the racial groups in SA in addition to an anti-American and anti-Western foreign policy. The rhetoric of the group is populist, almost Guevarist in nature with its call for agrarian reform and advocacy for guerrilla style politics.

The National Freedom Party is the usual "law and order" type party that mostly deals with crime related issues and urban issues in the Eastern Cape. They are something of a bumper-sticker party as they seem to be quite handy with catchphrases and mottos, but not so handy at actually putting together a coherent platform.

The Freedom Front Plus is the successor to the formerly dominant National Party. They have since rejected the concept of Apartheid and Afrikaner supremacy in favor of a softer Christian Conservatism and Afrikaner Nationalism with a focus on rural issues and a populist economic platform.

Thank you for the information! Definitely helped me out! Seems the Econ Freedom Fighters are even worse of a party for me than the ANC Though, it seems the Freedom Front Plus has the most dubious origins, from what you have written. (glad they denounced Apartheid. Though, their previous position is a disturbing one to ever hold at any point)


Out of curiosity, has a party other than the ANC ever formed a government?

[Intell]

United Democratic Movement or Congress of the People.

[White Trash]

I'd support DA like you, Southern Gothic. Though, I don't know much about SA politics except that ANC is extremely corrupt.

The best breakdown I can give you, is that the DA is somewhere between the German CDU and some of the more centrist Democrats here in the USA. A Moderate Hero party for South African Moderate Heroes. Just a half skip left of center. The party is made up of the various white and coloured anti-Apartheid groups from before the 1994 elections. The main issues with this party is the debate over social conservatism. Rural Afrikaners and Coloured voters regularly clash with the more urbane, cosmopolitan Anglo voters leading to some interesting factional infighting.

The ANC, as you said is very corrupt. But in addition to being corrupt, it is extremely bloated as well. While the party platform professes Democratic Socialism and Social Democracy, it's become almost a big tent in practice. Marthinus van Schalkwyk, the former leader of the dying National Party and a committed rural conservative, is now a standard bearer for the ANC. As you can imagine, trying to balance the needs of radical Pan-African nationalism and former Apartheid regime personnel can get troublesome leading to the formation of the next party:

The Economic Freedom fighters are mostly made up by former members of the ANC's radical Socialist wing and its youth wing led by Julius Malema. The party has a radical stance on wealth redistribution between the racial groups in SA in addition to an anti-American and anti-Western foreign policy. The rhetoric of the group is populist, almost Guevarist in nature with its call for agrarian reform and advocacy for guerrilla style politics.

The National Freedom Party is the usual "law and order" type party that mostly deals with crime related issues and urban issues in the Eastern Cape. They are something of a bumper-sticker party as they seem to be quite handy with catchphrases and mottos, but not so handy at actually putting together a coherent platform.

The Freedom Front Plus is the successor to the formerly dominant National Party. They have since rejected the concept of Apartheid and Afrikaner supremacy in favor of a softer Christian Conservatism and Afrikaner Nationalism with a focus on rural issues and a populist economic platform.

Thank you for the information! Definitely helped me out! Seems the Econ Freedom Fighters are even worse of a party for me than the ANC Though, it seems the Freedom Front Plus has the most dubious origins, from what you have written. (glad they denounced Apartheid. Though, their previous position is a disturbing one to ever hold at any point)


Out of curiosity, has a party other than the ANC ever formed a government?

The ANC has formed every government without coalition since the first multiracial elections in 1994. Their power is starting to diminish however as the EFF and the DA pick up more and more dissatisfied voters.

Sadly, the parties are starting to be drawn on racial and ethnic lines again, with primarily white and Coloured voters going for the DA and the black majority supporting the ANC.

[White Trash]

Of course the Crackerdom that is Atlas votes for the only two white majority parties

[evergreenarbor]

DA for lack of better options.

[White Trash]

My ranking:

Democratic Alliance



Freedom Front Plus
National Freedom Party
Inkatha Freedom Party



ANC









Economic Freedom Fighters

[SATW]

I'd support DA like you, Southern Gothic. Though, I don't know much about SA politics except that ANC is extremely corrupt.

The best breakdown I can give you, is that the DA is somewhere between the German CDU and some of the more centrist Democrats here in the USA. A Moderate Hero party for South African Moderate Heroes. Just a half skip left of center. The party is made up of the various white and coloured anti-Apartheid groups from before the 1994 elections. The main issues with this party is the debate over social conservatism. Rural Afrikaners and Coloured voters regularly clash with the more urbane, cosmopolitan Anglo voters leading to some interesting factional infighting.

The ANC, as you said is very corrupt. But in addition to being corrupt, it is extremely bloated as well. While the party platform professes Democratic Socialism and Social Democracy, it's become almost a big tent in practice. Marthinus van Schalkwyk, the former leader of the dying National Party and a committed rural conservative, is now a standard bearer for the ANC. As you can imagine, trying to balance the needs of radical Pan-African nationalism and former Apartheid regime personnel can get troublesome leading to the formation of the next party:

The Economic Freedom fighters are mostly made up by former members of the ANC's radical Socialist wing and its youth wing led by Julius Malema. The party has a radical stance on wealth redistribution between the racial groups in SA in addition to an anti-American and anti-Western foreign policy. The rhetoric of the group is populist, almost Guevarist in nature with its call for agrarian reform and advocacy for guerrilla style politics.

The National Freedom Party is the usual "law and order" type party that mostly deals with crime related issues and urban issues in the Eastern Cape. They are something of a bumper-sticker party as they seem to be quite handy with catchphrases and mottos, but not so handy at actually putting together a coherent platform.

The Freedom Front Plus is the successor to the formerly dominant National Party. They have since rejected the concept of Apartheid and Afrikaner supremacy in favor of a softer Christian Conservatism and Afrikaner Nationalism with a focus on rural issues and a populist economic platform.

Thank you for the information! Definitely helped me out! Seems the Econ Freedom Fighters are even worse of a party for me than the ANC Though, it seems the Freedom Front Plus has the most dubious origins, from what you have written. (glad they denounced Apartheid. Though, their previous position is a disturbing one to ever hold at any point)


Out of curiosity, has a party other than the ANC ever formed a government?

The ANC has formed every government without coalition since the first multiracial elections in 1994. Their power is starting to diminish however as the EFF and the DA pick up more and more dissatisfied voters.

Sadly, the parties are starting to be drawn on racial and ethnic lines again, with primarily white and Coloured voters going for the DA and the black majority supporting the ANC.

Ah, very interesting. Seems like this populist and divisive trend in politics is a worldwide one.

[White Trash]

I'd support DA like you, Southern Gothic. Though, I don't know much about SA politics except that ANC is extremely corrupt.

The best breakdown I can give you, is that the DA is somewhere between the German CDU and some of the more centrist Democrats here in the USA. A Moderate Hero party for South African Moderate Heroes. Just a half skip left of center. The party is made up of the various white and coloured anti-Apartheid groups from before the 1994 elections. The main issues with this party is the debate over social conservatism. Rural Afrikaners and Coloured voters regularly clash with the more urbane, cosmopolitan Anglo voters leading to some interesting factional infighting.

The ANC, as you said is very corrupt. But in addition to being corrupt, it is extremely bloated as well. While the party platform professes Democratic Socialism and Social Democracy, it's become almost a big tent in practice. Marthinus van Schalkwyk, the former leader of the dying National Party and a committed rural conservative, is now a standard bearer for the ANC. As you can imagine, trying to balance the needs of radical Pan-African nationalism and former Apartheid regime personnel can get troublesome leading to the formation of the next party:

The Economic Freedom fighters are mostly made up by former members of the ANC's radical Socialist wing and its youth wing led by Julius Malema. The party has a radical stance on wealth redistribution between the racial groups in SA in addition to an anti-American and anti-Western foreign policy. The rhetoric of the group is populist, almost Guevarist in nature with its call for agrarian reform and advocacy for guerrilla style politics.

The National Freedom Party is the usual "law and order" type party that mostly deals with crime related issues and urban issues in the Eastern Cape. They are something of a bumper-sticker party as they seem to be quite handy with catchphrases and mottos, but not so handy at actually putting together a coherent platform.

The Freedom Front Plus is the successor to the formerly dominant National Party. They have since rejected the concept of Apartheid and Afrikaner supremacy in favor of a softer Christian Conservatism and Afrikaner Nationalism with a focus on rural issues and a populist economic platform.

Thank you for the information! Definitely helped me out! Seems the Econ Freedom Fighters are even worse of a party for me than the ANC Though, it seems the Freedom Front Plus has the most dubious origins, from what you have written. (glad they denounced Apartheid. Though, their previous position is a disturbing one to ever hold at any point)


Out of curiosity, has a party other than the ANC ever formed a government?

The ANC has formed every government without coalition since the first multiracial elections in 1994. Their power is starting to diminish however as the EFF and the DA pick up more and more dissatisfied voters.

Sadly, the parties are starting to be drawn on racial and ethnic lines again, with primarily white and Coloured voters going for the DA and the black majority supporting the ANC.

Ah, very interesting. Seems like this populist and divisive trend in politics is a worldwide one.

Unfortunately that is true. South Africa will not see a decent ruling party for quite some time. The ANC has too much power due to a number of reasons, mainly corruption and illegal activity. But don't get me wrong, the other parties have just as serious flaws, they just haven't been given as much time in the spotlight.

[SATW]

I'd support DA like you, Southern Gothic. Though, I don't know much about SA politics except that ANC is extremely corrupt.

The best breakdown I can give you, is that the DA is somewhere between the German CDU and some of the more centrist Democrats here in the USA. A Moderate Hero party for South African Moderate Heroes. Just a half skip left of center. The party is made up of the various white and coloured anti-Apartheid groups from before the 1994 elections. The main issues with this party is the debate over social conservatism. Rural Afrikaners and Coloured voters regularly clash with the more urbane, cosmopolitan Anglo voters leading to some interesting factional infighting.

The ANC, as you said is very corrupt. But in addition to being corrupt, it is extremely bloated as well. While the party platform professes Democratic Socialism and Social Democracy, it's become almost a big tent in practice. Marthinus van Schalkwyk, the former leader of the dying National Party and a committed rural conservative, is now a standard bearer for the ANC. As you can imagine, trying to balance the needs of radical Pan-African nationalism and former Apartheid regime personnel can get troublesome leading to the formation of the next party:

The Economic Freedom fighters are mostly made up by former members of the ANC's radical Socialist wing and its youth wing led by Julius Malema. The party has a radical stance on wealth redistribution between the racial groups in SA in addition to an anti-American and anti-Western foreign policy. The rhetoric of the group is populist, almost Guevarist in nature with its call for agrarian reform and advocacy for guerrilla style politics.

The National Freedom Party is the usual "law and order" type party that mostly deals with crime related issues and urban issues in the Eastern Cape. They are something of a bumper-sticker party as they seem to be quite handy with catchphrases and mottos, but not so handy at actually putting together a coherent platform.

The Freedom Front Plus is the successor to the formerly dominant National Party. They have since rejected the concept of Apartheid and Afrikaner supremacy in favor of a softer Christian Conservatism and Afrikaner Nationalism with a focus on rural issues and a populist economic platform.

Thank you for the information! Definitely helped me out! Seems the Econ Freedom Fighters are even worse of a party for me than the ANC Though, it seems the Freedom Front Plus has the most dubious origins, from what you have written. (glad they denounced Apartheid. Though, their previous position is a disturbing one to ever hold at any point)


Out of curiosity, has a party other than the ANC ever formed a government?

The ANC has formed every government without coalition since the first multiracial elections in 1994. Their power is starting to diminish however as the EFF and the DA pick up more and more dissatisfied voters.

Sadly, the parties are starting to be drawn on racial and ethnic lines again, with primarily white and Coloured voters going for the DA and the black majority supporting the ANC.

Ah, very interesting. Seems like this populist and divisive trend in politics is a worldwide one.

Unfortunately that is true. South Africa will not see a decent ruling party for quite some time. The ANC has too much power due to a number of reasons, mainly corruption and illegal activity. But don't get me wrong, the other parties have just as serious flaws, they just haven't been given as much time in the spotlight.

That's a shame. I hope some decent leader is able to take power eventually. Though, certainly, its in much better shape than Zimbabwe and also the former soviet republics in Asia. SA seems to, by far, have the least problems  when compared to other recently freed societies.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

Vavi's party if he ever gets off his arse.

[White Trash]

I forgot to talk about the Inkatha Freedom Party. The IFP is a rigidly conservative party centered around Zulu issues specifically. Strangely enough, they credit an American for a good chunk of their political thinking, Booker T. Washington. They were highly influenced by the American black conservative movement and have a strong emphasis on Zulu patriotism and traditional values. They favor a strongly defended border with Zimbabwe as Zulus and Zimbabwean immigrants often compete for the same jobs in the Eastern Cape. They were the third largest party (After the ANC and the DA) for a long time until the rise of Julius Malema and the EFF.

They aren't too bad in my opinion, but some of the harder right-wing factions within the party can get a little dicey regarding their views on women, homosexuality, and religious freedom.

[SWE]

Ideology aside, it disgusts me that Atlas posters have a chance to vote for a party with "Freedom Fighter" in the name and they aren't going for it. Embarrassing.

[Hash]

The best breakdown I can give you, is that the DA is somewhere between the German CDU and some of the more centrist Democrats here in the USA. A Moderate Hero party for South African Moderate Heroes. Just a half skip left of center. The party is made up of the various white and coloured anti-Apartheid groups from before the 1994 elections.

In reality, the modern DA is best understood as a liberal-ish anti-ANC party catering primarily to the racial minorities, and the party's liberal ideology increasingly seems to take backstage in electoral campaigns where the priority is attacking the ANC on all fronts rather than ideological coherence. The party is the modern incarnation of the white liberal anti-apartheid group which grew in parliamentary size in the late 1970s and early 1980s, which became known as the Democratic Party in 1988. These parties supported free market economics before the ruling NP fully came around to it, and a negotiated settlement to apartheid involving some kind of power-sharing, consociational democracy or federalism. While it did poorly in the first free multiracial elections because it lacked any sort of base, it found a lucrative niche in 1999 as the tough anti-ANC option for non-black voters - to do so, however, they used rhetoric ('crumbling' moral values, galloping rapes/murders, corruption) and language (with the Afrikaans slogan 'fight back') which opened the party to accusations of racism by the ANC, which has loved using "yes but they're racist whites you see" as their cop-out excuse for their own failings. The actual DA was born in 2000 as a short-lived and ill-fated alliance between the Democratic Party and the rebranded 'New' National Party (of apartheid-era fame), with both parties trying to use the other to further their own narrow partisan interests more than anything else. The NNP came to the belated realization that it wasn't fit to be in opposition and preferred to purse a strategy of rapprochement with the ANC thereafter, although a few NNP names who joined the DA stuck around after the Nats formally left. Things ended up working better for the DA than the NNP, since the NNP was finally destroyed in 2004 (and joined the ANC not long after) and its Coloured voters defected en masse to the DA, which finished consolidating its new Coloured base with the merger of Patricia de Lille's Independent Democrats party after the 2009 elections.

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I don't know what you're talking about. The main issue within the DA is how to expand its electorate, i.e. how to win black people over. The real factional clashes have not been about 'Rural Afrikaners and Coloured voters' or 'urbane, cosmopolitan Anglo voters', but rather about managing the thorny issue of race in contemporary South Africa and all it entails and silent resentment by the party's old timers about the rapid advancement of young black recruits in party ranks (which has been a constant in any predominantly white party since 1994). The DA's current leader, Mmusi Maimane, is the party's first black leader and his backstory/personality would suggest he is a better fit for black voters than his predecessor and political mentor Helen Zille, who for all her qualities was an abrasive woman with an unfortunate tendency to use racially insensitive language when she lost her temper. Maimane seems like a nice guy and may be talented, but I have a lingering feeling that he's an empty suit - an issue which goes to the core of the DA's problems in attracting black voters: their tendency to catapult young black recruits to leadership positions and then make a whole song and dance about OH LOOK A BLACK, which the ANC has called 'rent-a-black'. Then there is the very complicated issue of how the DA should approach and prioritize issues such as employment equity/BEE, crime and corruption to appeal to black voters. To their credit, the DA's black leaders today are rather talented people who got there partly through their own merits, the party shows an increasingly better understanding of black voters' concerns and the party is slowly but surely building up a larger black base.

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I'm not sure how Marthinus van Schalkwyk, who is not even a MP anymore and wasn't a major figure even when he was in cabinet (although to his credit that's the only thing in his political career that he didn't turn to sh-t), can be considered a 'standard bearer' for the ANC. Likewise, the modern ANC has never really been about 'balancing the needs of radical Pan-African nationalism and former Apartheid regime personnel' (especially since the ANC has never been a radical pan-Africanist party, but I digress). That being said, the ANC is a big tent, but it hasn't 'become' one - it has always been one, from the earliest days of the apartheid struggle with the formation of the Congress of the People in 1955. The ANC is one component of the Tripartite Alliance, which besides the ANC includes the Communist Party (SACP) and the largest trade union federation COSATU. Balancing the interests of the various ANC factions, affiliated groups and so forth has created many factional conflicts since the get-go, with the most legendary explosion of such conflict being Jacob Zuma's putsch against Thabo Mbeki at the 2007 Polokwane Conference. The disagreements within the ANC-led governing alliance have ranged from ideological conflicts (over economic policy and economic development, primarily) to personality conflicts and everything in between. I could go into lots of further detail about the ANC alliance's problems and infighting, but that's another matter.

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The EFF is mostly a mix between a Julius Malema personality cult and a radical far-left party, weighing most heavily for the former. I'm not quite sure to what extent Malema's radical leftism is genuine, considering that he's a corrupt upstart who got rich quickly by milking the ANC's machine very early, and that I see his falling out with Zuma as having more to do with Malema being an irreverent ambitious who was causing embarrassment after embarrassment to the ruling clique. Long story short, Malema is a former ANCYL leader who supported Zuma at Polokwane in 2007 who is a very ambitious politician himself. He is a foul-mouthed demagogue, who uses inflammatory rhetoric against his opponents whoever they be. Regardless, he has successfully managed to capitalize on young black voters' frustrations with the ANC, perhaps most notably the 2012 Marikana Massacre. Since 2014, it seems to have successfully fulfilled its role as an intransigent, radical black opposition to the ANC.

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What on earth are you talking about? The NFP is a Zulu party which split off from the Inkatha Freedom Party in 2011, a slightly more modern and less dogmatic and autocratic version of the mother party, and unlike the IFP it cooperates with the ANC in government. They got 86% of their votes in 2014 from a single province, KwaZulu-Natal.

[Hash]

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It actually isn't. The Vryheidsfront was founded at the last minute before the 1994 elections by a group of more moderate right-wing Afrikaner nationalists with the goal of securing Afrikaner self-determination and the creation of a sovereign/autonomous volkstaat from the Afrikaner people*, led by retired army commander Constand Viljoen and a faction of his Afrikaner Volksfront, which was an umbrella group for fairly fringe far-right/right-wing Afrikaner nationalist groups agitating, violently or peacefully, for illusory wet dreams of group 'self-determination'; at all times acting as a far more polished group than the thuggish, white supremacist terrorist Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging of Eugène Terre'Blanche. In fact, Viljoen was scared into backing out of his initial strategy by the disastrous unravelling of the 1994 Bophuthatswana invasion, in large part due to the AWB f-cking sh-t up (it was a sign of how things would have gotten out of hand if moderates like Viljoen indirectly/directly abetted white terrorism). He was pushed into participating in the elections, unlike basically every other fringe right-wing Afrikaner group, by the last-minute inclusion of a 'Volkstaat Council' in the 1993 interim constitution, as well as recognition of a separate right to self-determination for "any community sharing a common cultural and language heritage, whether in a territorial entity within the Republic or in any other recognised way" (amusingly this is still in the current constitution, as article 235). The VF won a decent amount of support in 1994 (2.2%, or over 420,000 votes), providing at the time a good receptacle for conservative Afrikaners. It ended up losing nearly two-thirds of that by 1999, although it has managed to steadily increase its support - to a 'high' of some 165,000 votes in 2014 - in part because it integrated other fringe Afrikaner groups (hence the '+' in its name now) like the old moribund Konserwatiewe Party. It is now led by Pieter Mulder, the son of an apartheid-era hardline cabinet minister. The VF+ is a niche party, quite content at being a small Afrikaner nationalist party, catering to rural conservative Afrikaners who don't vote DA, and focusing quasi-exclusively on 'minority rights' (ie Afrikaner interests). They get along fairly well with the ANC since they're non-threatening and rather happy doing their own stuff without bothering anyone (see also: Orania). As a niche party, they don't get mainstream media attention much at all, and when they do it's usually because Mulder or someone has said something stupid in the process of defending white minority rights (in 2014: protesting a local government decision's to rename a school named after HF Verwoerd).

* The volkstaat, an old Afrikaner nationalist dream for an ethnic homeland, resuscitated in these nationalist circles during the transition period when they realized that they would lose control of the state. It has always been an idea which evokes Afrikaner nationalist mythology and looks fantastic on paper, but which has no basis in reality and never had a chance in hell of ever becoming reality, for a host of reasons. After 1994, the ANC government passed a law creating the Volkstaat Council and let the cranks have their fun with it, but quietly tossed it away by the end of their first term in office. The VF+ continues to pay lip service to the volkstaat from time to time, but has basically abandoned that silliness.

I forgot to talk about the Inkatha Freedom Party. The IFP is a rigidly conservative party centered around Zulu issues specifically. Strangely enough, they credit an American for a good chunk of their political thinking, Booker T. Washington. They were highly influenced by the American black conservative movement and have a strong emphasis on Zulu patriotism and traditional values. They favor a strongly defended border with Zimbabwe as Zulus and Zimbabwean immigrants often compete for the same jobs in the Eastern Cape. They were the third largest party (After the ANC and the DA) for a long time until the rise of Julius Malema and the EFF.

They aren't too bad in my opinion, but some of the harder right-wing factions within the party can get a little dicey regarding their views on women, homosexuality, and religious freedom.

Eastern Cape? What on earth are you talking about?

The IFP is to be described first and foremost as a traditionalist and chauvinistic 'Zulu nationalist' party, then as a personality cult for octogenarian Zulu tribal chieftain and party leader Mangosuthu Buthelezi and only then as a 'conservative party'. The party's conservatism has everything to do with the fact that Inkatha and Buthelezi represent Zulu traditionalism, the Zulu monarchy and Zulu ethno-linguistic interests over all else, everything else is mostly an afterthought (their conservatism on economic issues, which are irrelevant, is an effect of its traditionalist and longstanding anti-communism). I have never heard of anything about the IFP 'crediting' Booker T. Washington for their 'political thinking', or being 'highly influenced' by the American black conservative movements (and I've read quite a bit over the years); I suppose this could be part of their intermittent attempts at pretending that they're not only a Zulu party to win over 0.05% of non-Zulu votes (I'm not exaggerating on these figures), although I've usually associated their "intermittent attempts at pretending that they're not only a Zulu party" with them saying something about ethnic federalism. Mangosuthu Buthelezi continues to rule the party with an iron fist, very intolerant towards any criticisms or rival ambitions. The IFP is slowly dying, with the Zuma-led and KZN-dominated ANC siphoning off a crapload of votes from the IFP since 2009 and the NFP finishing off the job since 2011. They lost official opposition in KZN to the DA in 2014, winning just 10.9% of the provincial vote, which is their worst result by far (even the IFP+NFP sum in 2014 was lower than the IFP alone in 2009, when the IFP collapsed from 37% to 22%.

The IFP has a long, complicated and on the whole fairly dark past in the struggle against apartheid and the massive violence which preceded the 1994 elections (the 'black-on-black' violence between the IFP and ANC in KZN and the PWV). Managing to get the IFP, at the very last minute, to participate in the 1994 elections despite years of enmity with the ANC was one of the major successes of the transition.

If the IFP and NFP get shout-outs even if nobody on here should realistically support them (because nobody here is Zulu), then I feel that we should also give shout-outs to the United Democratic Movement, COPE (lol) and, for history's sake, the PAC.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

The funniest part of last election was the mysterious national success of a tiny local party nobody knew about that had a similar name and logo with ANC. (Notably Scoring higher than media hype party Agang)

[Lexii, harbinger of chaos and sexual anarchy]

The funniest part of last election was the mysterious national success of a tiny local party nobody knew about that had a similar name and logo with ANC. (Notably Scoring higher than media hype party Agang)

calling the ANC and the African Independent Congress's logos similar may be a bit of a stretch

[Clark Kent]

DA (White non-communist foreigner who is not receiving ANC patronage)

[DC Al Fine]

I'd probably vote African Christian Democratic Party because as far as I know they are an ideological party and not someone's personal machine (is that right Hash?)

Of the options noted, Democratic Alliance because I am right wing and neither Afrikaner nor Zulu.

[Hash]

I'd probably vote African Christian Democratic Party because as far as I know they are an ideological party and not someone's personal machine (is that right Hash?)

Yes, the ACDP is an ideological party (fundamentalist Christian right/social conservative to be precise) with a small niche clientele. I'm fairly interested by the party since, despite being founded/led by a black reverend and giving the superficial impression of being a party for those strange intense Christian fundamentalist Africans, its electorate seems quite multiracial and if anything it seems to do better with whites and Coloured voters.

Not to be confused with the (thankfully moribund) 'United Christian Democratic Party', originally founded and led by all-around horrible person and apartheid collaborator/useful idiot Lucas Mangope (who was, weirdly enough, expelled from his party 5 years ago).