It is easy in South Africa to become sceptical, even contemptuous, of new political parties. They come and go like Bafana Bafana coaches.
It's become a permanent feature of every election cycle; someone thinks they have the solution nobody has thought of. They raise and borrow money; they even sell their stuff to be able to register their party at the Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC).
On election day, or rather the days following election day, the cold, hard reality of politics hits them. Often, they don't even get enough votes for one seat in the council, legislature or Parliament.
We have seen this movie before: from the KISS party in 1994 to the Purple Cows and Andile Mngxitama's BLF in 2019 – delusional people who should instead have kept their money under the mattress (or in the couch).
On Wednesday, South Africa will hear about another new party called Rise Mzansi.
The party, led by former Business Day editor and corporate hotshot Songezo Zibi, positions itself as a "solutions-driven political and social movement that will drive meaningful change in communities every day and deliver political change at future elections beginning in 2024".
You are justified to yawn at the idea of another party that promises to unseat the ANC.
I've heard all the banter and jokes about Zibi and his ambitions to lead the government. Some of it is justified; Rise Mzansi will not win the 2024 election from scratch. But some of it is just downright cynical claptrap by the political establishment, which cannot fathom a new entrant succeeding at their game.
Because a new entrant potentially means losing votes – and money – for all of them: the ANC, DA, EFF, IFP and all others represented in Parliament. Surely we cannot be so jaded to think there is no space left in our political environment for a new entrant?
I am willing to give Zibi a hearing. Why?
I know Songezo from his days as editor and spokesperson for big companies like Absa, Volkswagen and Exxaro. He is an intelligent and decent human being. That alone is a step change from most options on next year's ballot, but it is not enough to secure him and his colleagues seats in Parliament.
Songezo's entrance into formal politics this week was long in the making. In 2014, he published the thought-provoking book Raising the Bar: Hope and Renewal in South Africa, a response to the destructive Zuma years and a challenge to South Africans to find a moral foundation and vision outside the state.
During his editorship of Business Day, Songezo challenged the country's economic structure and how it could be changed to provide prosperity for millions more who have not been uplifted out of poverty since the advent of democracy in 1994. He never became a lapdog for corporate South Africa and remained critical of the role of extraction capital.
A firm believer in the knowledge and ability of communities to identify and solve their challenges if the system supports them, Songezo's approach is not to solve all the country's problems at once. In his second book, Manifesto: A New Vision for South Africa, Zibi calls on professionals – black and white – to return to public service to deliver a better life the ANC couldn't.
Songezo represents a class of people who voted for the ANC but fell out of love with the governing party when it became clear the former liberation movement had become an empty vehicle for extraction and rent-seeking by corrupt patronage networks.
He also aims to target the non-voters. In the 2019 national election, only 17.6 million South Africans voted. Another 10 million were registered to vote but didn't make it to the ballot box. To put that number in perspective: if the 10 million non-voters voted for the same party, they would have come close to unseating the ANC.
Zibi and Rise Mzansi may just be successful at attracting ANC-aligned voters who feel alienated by other opposition parties like the DA, EFF and ActionSA.
Zibi's style is much more Obama than Malema. He speaks to people's hopes, not fears, and does not dabble in cheap populistic slogans. Will it be enough to get him and at least a few colleagues in Parliament? I don't know, but the story of Cope is one from which Zibi should draw inspiration and caution.
In 2009, barely a few weeks old, the Congress of the People (Cope), focusing almost exclusively on aggrieved ANC voters, managed to attract 1.3 million votes or 7% support in its first national election. The party fizzled out a few years later, but its 2009 achievement is evidence that a million or two votes are up for grabs.
What Zibi and Rise Mzansi do from Wednesday for the next 12 months will determine if they end up like the 2009 version of Cope or the badly bruised Purple Cows of 2019 after next year's election.
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