Taking charge of our ward
With our vote we grant politicians who have been selected by a tiny minority of party members near total power to govern for five years based on a flimsy national manifesto that doesn’t consider our local issues and almost nobody was involved in generating. We have come to accept that it is always political parties that get to decide who should be on the ballot for Ward Councillor – rather than the community itself.
When it comes to local elections many of us are faced with having to vote for a political party even if we don’t support any of them because there are no other options. On the Ward Ballot, we end up voting for the candidate that the political party has put forward to represent them even if we don’t know them or don’t support them.
Residents in a ward are not consulted or given the opportunity to nominate who should be on the ballot in the first place. When you think about it, limiting the choice of who should govern us to party candidates is fundamentally undemocratic. Especially when you consider how and why they are chosen. Most political parties rely on panels and committees stacked with senior politicians to decide on the candidates standing in wards and for the municipal PR list.
In the end, very few people are involved in making the decision who should be on the ballot and the process is rife with gate- keeping, corruption and factional politics. After all, ensuring particular candidates are selected is a core way to build power within the party or to gain access to resources procured through corruption.
Existing career politicians are chosen again and again because they have influence and know the right people. They have the support of a dominant faction and are retained even when their performance is poor. Well-connected newcomers are parachuted in even if they don’t have much experience.
In fact, senior politicians are shielded from the threat of not being elected by local communities. You will notice that a Mayor, Deputy Mayor, Speaker and Member of the Mayoral Committee are never fielded as ward candidates. They are allocated positions high up on the municipal PR list. This ensures that these members are loyal and follow the party line when it comes to decisions affecting committees because they owe their seat entirely to the party.
It’s possible then to be a career politician without ever having to secure a mandate from a local community.
Considering how many candidates are fielded nationally by the majority parties and how rapidly candidates are selected, there is simply no way that their track record and values can be tested. The first time most residents get to know who the candidate is when the decision has already been made and their face is print- ed on a poster. As for residents, we are forced to choose the least worst person for the job.
What this means is obvious – when it comes to decisions about the ward – party politicians are more accountable to the party than the community.
When it comes to governing our wards, we don’t have to limit our choice to the candidates that political parties put on the ballot. We can choose who should be on the ballot.
We all know people who are community leaders and are able to bring people together, build relationships and solve problems. People who are already transforming our communities and can speak from the heart and act with experience.
They may be a well-loved social worker, nurse or teacher who knows the issues. They may be a rabbi, imam or pastor who people turn to when times get tough. Or they may be a community worker or activist who can be relied on to take action. This doesn’t have to be someone older – so many young people have the passion and ideas we are yearning for.
Most of all, we need people to stand as a Councillor whose politics is rooted in a vision of a more just and equal city, and who are willing to stand with the communities in the ward to achieve this when they go to Council.
If we want to win a Ward Councillor seat from a political party, then we need a Ward Platform that can bring together residents behind a community candidate and inspire as many people as possible to get involved in the campaign – and vote!
The idea of a Ward Platform is useful because it neatly summarises what we want to prioritise:
• It is based in the communities of the Ward and concerned about reclaiming local democracy in the Ward involving every- one who lives in the ward – while bearing in mind our obligation to build a more socially just and equal city across wards.
• It is a platform because everyone can get involved in build- ing it and it allows a community member to stand who can inspire us.
While we may develop some ways of working it does not need to be a formal registered organisation – the point is to have enough cohesion and structure to be able to come together around a strategy.
Each ward will need to self-organise and deliberate on the best way to set up a Ward Platform. Bearing in mind our shared principles to ensure we find common ground across historical divides, feminise politics and work in non-hierarchical ways. These principles and ways of working must be clear and shared by all.
Our goal is to transform the ward through reclaiming power for residents – not to secure power in and of itself. It is easy to fall back on old ways of working and at every step we need to ask ourselves: Are we replicating the politics of political parties or opening up politics?
If more than one community candidate stands in the same ward, they might split the vote of people who want to take back control from political parties and this might result in a political party candidate winning the ward. If we are going to win then we need to choose a single candidate through a democratic process.
Taking part in nominating a candidate is one of the best ways to include people in local democracy and build a campaign to elect a community member. Residents coming together in every ward have to determine what will be the best way to take nominations.
Everybody living in the ward should be able to take part in a process that is transparent and fair. It should be widely advertised and easy to engage in. At first, many people won’t understand what we are trying to achieve so we need to be able to educate and explain to as many people as possible.
Ultimately it is up to potential nominees to campaign in the Ward, spread the word and secure support. This may take some work. We may need to encourage well-known people, with standing, to step forward and be nominated – most people don’t want to get involved in politics because they see it as a dirty game but politics will only change if credible honest members of the community move into our political spaces.
Sometimes, a particular nominee in the community will have such a clear ability to lead and will galvanise support and momentum. This is normal and we should encourage natural leadership – but their nomination should still be open to scrutiny and democratic contestation.
We should hold public debates, town-hall meetings and local assemblies where members of the ward can listen to nominees speak and make up their minds who they would like as the community candidate.
Robust debate and contestation of ideas are both healthy and necessary in a democracy. So the more nominees there are and the more diverse these candidates are, the better.
We can choose who the best candidate is by organising our own open caucus or primary election in the ward. We can choose people with experience to manage the process and choose people with standing in a way that builds trust.
Open caucuses are meetings where everybody in an area comes together in the same place to choose who should be the candidate. Caucuses can be held in lots of venues across the ward to improve participation.
A caucus is unique because everybody who wants to vote has to be present. We vote in these caucuses by standing in an area of the room with the other supporters voting for the same nominee as us. The nominee with the least supporters is dropped from the list and their supporters are given the opportunity to support their next preferred nominee. Essentially you repeat this, transferring votes until it is clear which nominee has the support of a majority of people.. We’ll need to think carefully about access and inclusion to make sure that everyone can get involved.
A primary election is held by ballot on paper or online. We can choose what system to use when counting the votes but it should be done in a public way:
Some thought needs to be given to how you will verify who is eligible to vote in a ward caucus or primary election as this will be managed by volunteers from the Ward Platform and won’t be overseen by the IEC. We can easily check if a resident is registered to vote in the ward by checking on the IEC website using their ID number.
While only citizens are allowed to vote in local government elections, a Ward Councillor represents everyone who lives in the ward including immigrant families, refugees and asylum seekers. So we should consider allowing everybody who lives in the ward to take part in the open caucus or primary election.
In the USA, the Justice Democrats are trying to get more progressive leaning ordinary people from poor and working class communities elected into safe seats that the Democratic Party has historically won in the US House of Representatives. They look for bold leaders, grassroots campaigners, and movement builders.
They call for nominations and select and train potential candidates in the skills and tactics they will need to win in primary elections without taking money from large corporations.
In the US general election in November 2018, a number of young progressive identified by Justice Democrats were elected to the House of Representatives, including 29-year-old Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez who had been working as a waitress and bartender in New York and who became the youngest woman elected to Congress.
The law allows anybody to stand as an Independent for election to be a Ward Councillor even if they don’t belong to a political party.
The IEC requires that candidates to be formally nominated together with the signatures of 50 voters – this is in fact very easy. We must simply submit the required documents during the candidate nomination period, which is published in the election timetable by the IEC once an election date has been proclaimed. An Independent can be nominated by anybody who lives in the ward and is registered on that municipal segment of the voters’ roll.
There are benefits to registering a community candidate as an Independent.
An Independent Councillor is only accountable to the residents in the Ward and nobody else. This means that they can fiercely represent the ward and its interests in Council. They can stand with residents without fear of reprisal, and avoid having to compromise on values when it comes to issues of solidarity and transformation.
An Independent Councillor, once elected, is more easily able to collaborate with any individual, movement or organisation in the ward without them being seen as acting in support of a political party.
A campaign to elect an Independent Councillor can be man- aged by a Ward Platform that relies on volunteers and doesn’t require much formal structure. An Independent Councillor can demonstrate how to reclaim local democracy and open up politics if they are supported, by committed volunteers, to give effect to these ideals long after winning an election. This may be hard to sustain over a five year period.
The effectiveness of an Independent Councillor relies entirely on their own values and skills. If they don’t perform there is no way to improve the situation unless there is formal community agreement in place which has legal standing.
To reclaim local democracy and shift power down we need to have enough Councillors from wards across the city to drive change from the inside. This is only possible if we form coalitions or federations with other Ward Platforms which have the same goal.
A coalition is possible where a number of Ward Platforms come together to support each other. Each Ward Platform would self organise and function independently, maintaining its unique character and local teams while sharing common values and ways of working.
A coalition of Ward Platforms is especially useful in a city as divided as ours and would provide opportunities for solidarity across historical and spatial divides. Community members in Ward Platforms across the city can share learning, knowledge, skills and tactics.
If Independent Councillors are elected to represent the Ward, they can take mandates from Ward Assemblies and act together in Council to achieve shared objectives.
In ward elections the candidate with a plurality of votes is elected Ward Councillor. This means that they need to win more votes than any other candidate.
It is extremely difficult to win a seat in this way because most wards across the city have historically been won by either the Democratic Alliance or the African National Congress by a large majority – often by many thousands of votes.
It’s possible to run a very good campaign as a Ward Platform but lose the election by one or two votes. As votes for Independent candidates cannot be counted towards the Proportional Representation election, these votes are effectively lost.
There is one alternative to maximise the impact of every voter. Some Ward Platforms might choose to collaborate with other Ward Platforms across the city to form a federation.
There are a few benefits to forming a federation. A federation could be registered with the IEC. This would allow Ward Platforms in the Federation to contest seats in the Proportional Representative elections in addition to Ward Councillor seats. All votes cast for Ward Councillors in the federation would also count towards the PR list, maximising the chances of winning a seat. We might pick up the PR votes of residents from across the city who are inspired by the campaigns – even where Ward Platforms are not contesting.
It is possible for a federation to have different candidates on the PR list of the Ward Councillors. This could be a list of candidates who do not represent Ward issues but cross-cutting thematic issues such as housing or safety across the region or city. These could be determined through a radical citywide nominating process.
However, this creates a whole new set of problems, including the need for a much larger central administration in the federation to manage the nomination of a central list. The centralising of power and decision making would inevitably lead to hierarchies and undermine the self-organising spirit and independence of Ward Platforms. It would also require central fundraising which would inevitably lead to contestation and factionalism. The danger here would be that the federation would start behaving much like a political party.
It would be most effective to register all of the Ward Candidates on the PR list. This would mean that Ward Platforms could focus on one campaign to secure the vote for their candidate. Depending on how the Ward Platform performs in the election, the federation can adjust their place on the PR list.
The IEC determines which voting districts and wards consti- tute what proportion of the PR vote and a PR seat is allocated in the subcouncil where the minimum quota is reached in that subcouncil. It is easier to secure across a subcouncil or citywide than it is in a single ward.
All Ward Platforms in the federation would need to work out a fair and transparent mechanism for allocating any seats that may be won in the PR election. For example, a federation could agree that:
A federation would only require a small coordinating structure and a simple constitution. For example, each Ward Platform could delegate one volunteer to sit unpaid on a co-ordinating committee and the delegation could be rotated every few months. This would need to be handled with as light a touch as possible to ensure basic coordination and encourage mutual support and solidarity between independent Ward Platforms.
Every ward is different and every community in our ward is different. We are facing different issues and have different needs that may require different solutions and interventions. These cannot be designed from above – they must be built by the people living in the ward. Complex problems cannot be resolved overnight – it takes hard work over the long term.
And yet, every election, politicians return to communities with cheap gifts and wild promises that they cannot keep. They claim initiatives they have not started and take the credit. They look to be seen and heard rather than listening to what others are doing and saying. They come up with an answer for everything. It is a game of power alone.
Generally, political parties publish one manifesto for the whole country when what we need are specific commitments and practical solutions for local problems. It’s simply not clear what they will achieve in the ward in the coming years because they are not a result of local deliberation and democratic decision making.
If we are going to democratise the nomination process for the ballot, and democratise how we make decisions, then we also need to democratise what issues we need to focus on. Manifestos should be local documents developed by and with residents living in the ward.
A ward platform should help compile a manifesto of ordinary ideas – that is the practical issues that need to be addressed and the projects that are achievable. A manifesto of ordinary ideas is not a promise, it is a roadmap for how the ward will come together to solve its pressing problems.
Political parties fund their national campaigns by securing donations from big businesses and wealthy individuals. This support is not free – it comes with strings attached. Some donors expect specific direct and often corrupt favours for their donation. Others expect to have the ear of the party to influence them and the political agenda as issues arise.
The depth of support and level of influence from party donors is the best kept secret of all political parties. If we want to open up politics and reclaim local democracy then we need to ensure our campaign is transparent about what funding has been received by who and we need to raise money by as many ordinary residents as possible.
Luckily, big businesses may not see any benefit in supporting community candidates and so the problem may never arise. But we cannot avoid having to fundraise. Money is not everything and much can be done with donations and volunteers but a campaign needs money to win.
We need to put together a realistic campaign budget which could include:
We can raise funds in many creative ways, including online and through fundraising events but ultimately the best way is for the candidate themself to talk to individuals and convince them to support the campaign.
The choice to come together to contest local elections as a Ward Platform is bold but we can only hope to win if we out-organise the political parties.
A community candidate doesn’t have the benefit of the party machinery and advertising to get out the word. The only way to win is to build a participatory campaign that welcomes as many people as possible to help out. We have to rely on the hard work of committed and skilled volunteers.
We can’t rely on word of mouth or social media to get our message out. What we are trying is new and many people won’t understand how it might be different and how it could work. We have to speak to as many people as possible across the ward and canvas their support. Spending time with people one on one is the most effective way to win support but it doesn’t mean people will actually register or vote.
To win the Ward we would need to convince some residents who would normally vote for a majority political party to vote for a community candidate, motivate voters who are discouraged and don’t pitch up to vote to come to the polls, and ensure a significant number of eligible voters register to vote – and make sure everybody goes to the polling station on the day of the election.
We can’t do this without a serious strategy. It will be necessary to prioritise areas where we have the most potential of winning and ensure that volunteers visit every single home to speak to residents. This is hard work but we can print maps of voting districts and divide up areas into different sectors with local volunteers.
It will be necessary to hand out pamphlets so people know why we are knocking on the door. If they are interested in supporting the campaign we can collect their telephone number to ensure we can stay in touch. Don’t forget that there may be more than one voter in each household with different political views and we need to work safely at all times. We can of course also collect the details of potential volunteers and supporters online.
Ultimately we are going to need to decide collectively who in the ward are the most likely to vote for the community candidate, bearing in mind that we will need a plurality to overcome the majority party and this inevitably means that we will need broad support across a range of people and not just the most vocal or politically active.
We’ll need teams who are good at: organising events to fundraise, motivating residents, recruiting volunteers, raising the profile of the campaign and getting the word out. There will be a need to organise local assemblies to flesh out community manifestos and more formal primary elections or ward caucuses.
Figuring out the issues and making commitments in a community manifesto is one thing – but it can get confusing for people if our message is complicated – winning a campaign requires us to focus on one or two issues that are the most important and drive home a compelling message.
Canvasing the support of existing organisations, local businesses and people with a public profile will be essential to maximise our exposure. But we will need a team who knows how to manage press relations and produce snappy social media.
We rarely see ward candidates go head to head and we should definitely challenge the other party candidates to public debates. We face serious issues so we should point them out and explain the solutions but stay away from negative campaigns. Remember that hope inspires and mobilises people. Cynicism doesn’t.
But most important – we have to get people to register and to vote on the day. We can do it!
