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The proliferation of political parties diffuses power and makes a mockery of ‘the black voice’

The proliferation of voices undermines the idea of unitary black voice or creed – and backsliding, fragmentation and frittering of democracy has become one of the defining features of democracy.
Ismail Lagardien
By Ismail Lagardien
22 Sep 2025
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I picked up on social media a brief video clip of Julius Malema talking about the proliferation of political parties and how it splits “the black vote”. 

I agreed with his general sentiment, that the proliferation of political parties diffuses power and fragments democracy, but parted ways over the implication that there is a conspiracy under way. This disagreement has more to do with opposition to conspiracy theories. I don’t believe that a group of people get together every so often to work out ways to specifically target people. I should explain, briefly.

I am much more comfortable with explanations about capitalism’s historical passage and decline, and with the fact that vested interests see political, economic and financial gain from supporting one or another political party, or creating new political parties. It is, nonetheless, hard to believe that funding existing or new political parties stems from care or concern for humanity, or that it is done out of the goodness of hearts. It is transactional. 

Two things are worth discussing. One is the black vote, and the other is the proliferation of political parties and the diffusion of power. The latter is easier to explain. 

More political parties means that there are (more) differing voices, and of course, no single party political voice. More political parties can tend to lead to political fragmentation; it becomes harder to agree on policies, and compromises become necessary. It really can be that simple and crude. The most powerful and representative political forces – not specifically political parties – are, then, unable to ensure outcomes. It’s not all that bad. If there is wide and deep agreement on what type of polity should/would be the driver of cohesion, prosperity, justice and stability, contending political parties would be in general agreement.  

For example, while there is a concern in the US about political fragmentation driven by the proliferation of voices on social media, the two main political parties generally agree on the foundational principles of that country, and on the economic system that is handed from Democrats to Republicans over time, mutatis mutandis. Consider that there is the repeated reference to “communist China,” but never to “capitalist America” when, in this particular sense, China has one party that has steered the country through communism, and two parties in the US have steered that country through capitalism… Never mind.

In the US, in particular, liberal democracy has been in decline, a decline that has been hastened by the arrival of the presidency of Donald Trump. David Runciman presented insights into the proliferation of political voices, the decline of democracy and the fragmentation of policies, all of which have gained momentum with the rise of strong men and strong personalities around which all their politics revolve. Trump is only one of a wide field and, I should add my long-run view, that the democracy in the US has been in decline since way before his arrival. The reader would probably take the word of the old neo-con, Francis Fukuyama, on why liberal democracy is in trouble, and why democracy is performing so poorly (subscription required). My view is that it has to do with the decline of capitalism. But read Fukuyama and Runciman, or the International Foundation for Electoral Systems on backsliding. The V-Dem Institute provides good data on the state of democracy.

There has been serious democratic backsliding across the liberal capitalist world since the end of the Cold War.Nancy Bermeo of Oxford University writes: 

“A close historical look at the varieties of backsliding reveals that the classic open-ended coups d’état of the Cold War years are now outnumbered by what I call promissory coups; that the dramatic executive coups of the past are being replaced by a process that I call executive aggrandizement; and finally, that the blatant election-day vote fraud that characterized elections in many developing democracies in the past is being replaced by longer-term strategic harassment and manipulation.”

It’s easy to agree, then, that the proliferation of voices undermines the idea of unitary black voice or creed, and backsliding, fragmentation and frittering of democracy has become one of the defining features of democracy.

Futility of the search for a unified black voice and vote


The question is, then, whether a unified creed or voice, “the black vote” would get us anywhere. My short response is, no.

A longer response would be that a unified black voice and vote is elusive; I’m not sure that it exists as a reliable and stable block. A quick glance at the elections-coalitions report produced by the Mapungubwe Institute for Strategic Reflection (Mistra) points to around 50 political parties/formations in last year’s election. Mistra research found that 18 parties out of 52 gained seats in the National Assembly, compared to 14: 48 in 2019, and 13:29 in 2014. There were six parties in the National Assembly after the 1994 election. (See page 4 of the Mistra report). We have evidence then, of a proliferation of voices and voting blocs since 1994.

In strict economics-speak, more voices have not amounted to significantly better outcomes. It is historically, politically and socially relevant and important; bringing more people into democracy and participation in political processes is necessarily a good thing. What is difficult to see is that a single political force (Malema intimated at a coalition of the ANC, the EFF and uMkhonto Wesizwe party) would bring together and consolidate the black voice and vote. It’s fine, if a single black voice and vote is an end in itself. To the extent that each represents the black voice, beyond that voice being an end in itself, what remains of the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC), the Azanian People’s Organisation (Azapo) and the ANC represents differing expectations. Trying to force a single, unifying black voice and vote would be undemocratic and authoritarian. In liberal democracy you cannot force people to vote in a particular way, individuals tend to vote the way they want once inside the voting booth.

For all his suggestions of a united African voice, and of socialism, Robert Sobukwe, founding member of the PAC, stressed the rights “of individuals not groups”. It’s hard to get a grip of socialism’s focus on community and society, and Sobukwe’s emphasis on the individual. He sounded, here, more like Margaret Thatcher, who famously did not believe in “society”. The PAC, like Azapo, is a spent force, notwithstanding the patches of intellectual brilliance among its leaders, old and new, some of whom were absorbed into the post-apartheid state, and/or the corporate world. 

Speaking of Thatcher and individualism, Malema’s “economic freedom” leans very heavily into the “freedom” that rightwing libertarians promote. Freedom in economics-speak (they are the “economic freedom” fighters) after all, means that one person would be freer to become wealthier, more prosperous and generally better off than the next. It all gets rather confusing.

Beyond confusion, it is difficult to imagine that the ANC, EFF and the MK party are, collectively, the same as, or representative of the black voice represented by the ANC, PAC and Azapo (and the Inkatha Freedom Party, for that matter) during the previous era. Even then, the differences were significant. We need to only consider how these differences were exploited, manipulated and expressed violently.

One of the many flaws of identity politics is the assumption that everyone of a particular skin colour, racial or ethnic background is loyal to a single set of beliefs and values. This is probably nothing revelatory, but there are black people who are liberal capitalists, social democrats, libertarians, free marketers, communists, tribalists, ethno-nationalists, monarchists. Sure, before any of that, there is black.

The problem in South Africa, most notably among Malema, his followers and fellow travellers, the caprices of fashion (and access to pecuniary gain) determine who is black, and who is not black enough. What remains to be said, at least here, is that it is extremely difficult to believe that Malema would take instructions from any other black person in the country. It is easier to accept that there is a proliferation of (black) voices and a fragmentation of democracy, and that it may take a quite authoritarian and (likely) violent order to forge or force a unified black voice and vote. 

As Mistra’s research findings have shown, political power is, now, more diffused across society than it has been for more than three decades. That’s a good thing. DM