THE 2008 BUDGET VOTES: HOW THE OPPOSITION VOTED
By: Gareth van Onselen
Introduction
Attached to this article is a table which sets out how the 15 parties represented in the National Assembly voted in the 2008 budget votes.
I have previously, in a series of articles, set out what the budget votes are, why they are important and how they work; as well as some analysis of voting patterns in previous years. Should you be unfamiliar with the process, I would recommend reading the following articles - and certainly the first - by way of introduction:
• What is a budget vote?
• The ACDP on the ANC and crime - for or against?
• The IFP on the ANC and crime - for or against?
• The 2007 budget votes
• The 2007 budget votes - how the opposition voted on safety and security
This year the budget votes took place on 17 June, and the way in which the opposition voted once again makes for interesting analysis.
Political parties in the NA
But first, let me briefly set out the composition of political parties in the National Assembly (NA), which is helpful not only for determining what the various acronyms used in the attached table stand for (with floor crossing, there has been a proliferation of smaller parties over the past five years - it can be hard work keeping track of all of them) but the size of each party as well.
There are currently15 parties represented in the NA which, together, constitute the 400 members that make up a full house. The vast bulk of these parties are tiny. Indeed, 11 of the 15 parties have four members or less, and six have two members or less, which tells you as much about the ANC’s dominance as it does about the need for a consolidated opposition. From biggest to smallest, they are:
1. The African National Congress (ANC): 297 members
2. The Democratic Alliance (DA): 47
3. The Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP): 23
4. The United Democratic Movement (UDM): 6
5. The Independent Democrats (ID): 4
6. The African Christian Democratic Party (ACDP): 4
7. The Freedom Front Plus (FF+): 4
8. The National Democratic Convention (NADECO): 4
9. The United Christian Democratic Party (UCDP): 3
10. The Minority Front (MF): 2
11. The African People’s Convention (APC): 2
12. The Pan Africanist Congress of Azania (PAC): 1
13. The Azanian People’s Organisation (AZAPO): 1
14. The Federation of Democrats (FD): 1
15. The National Alliance (NA): 1
How they voted
In broad terms, voting tends to reflect the following pattern: The DA, as the largest and most active political party (certainly the opposition party with the most comprehensive set of policy alternatives and the most coherent and well defined political philosophy) will lead the way and the other parties will follow suit - the larger the party, the closer it reflects the DA’s voting pattern; the smaller the party, the more it tends to reflect the ANC’s (the ANC obviously supports every single budget vote, as it is in government and each proposed budget is a product of its own policy). There are, of course, exceptions; but, as a general rule, this is accurate.
And so it is that, in any given year, the DA will oppose the most votes; as you move through the parties towards the smallest, support for the ANC’s policy grows, until you reach the one-man parties which - if they bother to turn up for the budget votes at all - will support the ANC’s policy wi
Attached Documents
2008BudgetVotes-ByParty.pdf
| Posted on 2/7/2008
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