Ethnodemocracy Pt. 4: Policy Wedge

A Cohesive Strategy for the VF+ in 2024

As a senior official in the party explained it to me once, the VF+ has until now been divided across three constituencies - the Cape, the North, and Orania. The Cape aims for autonomy, Orania for greater self-determination, and the North for a better deal in local administration.

But this seems to me to be an unnecessary division, since all three share the same theme - greater self-determination. This is of vital importance for minorities of all stripes, facing aggressive racial discrimination from a majoritarian political behemoth that is basically undefeatable, since black people, on the whole, do not vote for minorities, no matter how generous the overtures are (see the previous posts in this series: pt.1, pt.2, pt.3).

But this theme of greater self-determination can be extended to embrace all minorities, Anglo, Afrikaner, Coloured and Indian, and extend the party’s reach into the East too, if they are smart and proactive about it.

While the party still prioritises Afrikaners, which is understandable, there is really not much time left for any of this electoral stuff to matter. The aim for the present, I believe, should be maximising participation and leverage in wresting power from the national government.

This will mean serious cooperation across various organisations that until now have had only informal ties - Solidariteit, AfriForum, and political minority representives.

After all, national control is not just a moonshot, it is a pipe dream, but local control is a goal that lies right before us, and can protect minorities from the decay and violence visible elsewhere. Gated communities are not enough, and are not a realistic solution for all.

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General Strategy

Power must be devolved and consolidated for long term gains, and there are concrete means of achieving it. But first, we must take the position that the achievement of autonomy is paramount, and pursue the consolidation of local powers by any means necessary, unapologetically.

The means adopting the stance of a Policy Wedge. This is opposed to the policy-neutral and opportunistic kingmaker role that parties like the PA play - they have no real grand strategy aside from accumulating resources, and engage in amoral horse-trading to extract concessions from whatever party is willing to do business with them.

Instead, one should have a clear set of reformist goals that one uses to target the base of the party one nearest to you - the EFF plays this role very effectively with the ANC, by forcing them to adopt far left economic policies and anti-white social policies, targeting the black youth.

For a minority interest party, there is a limited sphere of influence, and a limited pool of voters - as part one of this series showed, party blocs function as censuses on identity groups.

As a result, the most effective strategy is to adopt a more radical approach which directly challenges the leader of the ethnic bloc, forcing them into more radical positions themselves in order to compete with you. This has a snowball effect, since their employment of your policies emboldens supporters of those ideas, making your position more appealing.

This has happened with Cape independence and its effect on the DA’s pretences at federalism, which they have been forced to take seriously in order to contain their base’s demands for self-determination.

But the Cape is not the only region that can benefit from a more aggressive Policy Wedge.

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Northern Strategy

In 2019, the workers union and civic activist group Solidariteit launched a program known as Ankerdorpe (Anchor Towns), in which aims to promote the consolidation and concentration of Afrikaners in 30 different towns around South Africa where they form either a majority or a strong plurality.

In theory, this can be used to pool resources for common interest and electoral victories, strengthening the community against the chaos and depredations of our crumbling state.

But there are a couple of shortcomings here. These have solutions, but they require stronger cooperation with other institutions to overcome.

First of all, there is a lack of capital. It is not so easy for businesses and residents to retreat to these areas. Orania has also encountered this problem, but has already reached a solution - the community bank OSK has offered low-interest housing loans to Afrikaners who wish to relocate to Orania, facilitating the migration.

Second, there is a lack of political power. In many cases, these anchor towns still form minorities within broader municipal entities, leaving them incapable of determining the deployment of their resources and the quality of their services.

Let us take Pretoria for example.

According to the 2011 census, the city itself is 48% Afrikaans and 16% English. In the past decade, there has been a massive influx of Afrikaners to the area. But the municipality boundaries include several other urban settlement zones, rendering this white majority region the minority in a 75% black municipality.

In order for Afrikaners to take advantage of this plan, political parties aligned to their interests must take advantage of the power to redraw municipal boundaries. The power to redraw municipal boundaries is divided between several layers of consultation, and the boundaries are decided by a panel selected by a cabinet minister, but the establishment of a municipality is in the hands of the MEP.

With the 2024 elections coming up, that power is up for grabs. It won’t be easy, but an anti-Charterist coalition can win, and can effect change. A helpful step from a legal perspective would be to request municipal boundaries from the Demarcation Board that reflect the culture of the people there, based on the right to self-determination written into the constitution.

For the time being, Solidariteit and AfriForum maintain a strict policy of avoiding division in the community, and so do not endorse any particular party, but maintain a special relationship with the DA. This is imminently sensible for several reasons, but the downside is that the DA tend to piggyback on AfriForum initiatives (such as the Stellenbosch language issue), while doing little in their own right to initiate any ambitious projects that address the balance of power (at least until quite recently).

But in this case, the Ankerdorpe plan is stillborn if it has no access to capital and political power. Capital can potentially be accessed if they can combine the cooperation of the OSK and its mortgage plans with public participation and property consolidation in the form of collective trusts, in much the same way as the traditionally-governed areas do.

But as far as political power goes, they need support from a political party that has the will and the capacity to stand for district reallocation. Since the DA cannot maintain a majority without coalition partners, and the VF+ is one of those anti-Charterist parties, it has the ability to act as a policy wedge, campaigning against the DA within the Afrikaans community for a more aggressive and proactive stance on issues which affect them.

In exchange for cooperation, the VF+ has then the capacity to negotiate on these policies. With Pretoria returned to something like its original boundaries, it can increase its self-determination and autonomy, clean up the city, and project economic growth into the whole surrounding area.

In relatively homogeneous neighbourhoods where residents are cooperative with collective trust agreements, road ownership can even be transferred, effectively transferring contiguous territory to an increasingly cohesive enclave society.

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Mixed Feelings

Taking back control is a theme that also applies to the recent influx of conservative Coloured members and voters, whose only serious alternatives to the DA so far has been the fickle, corrupt, and ANC-aligned opportunists in GOOD and the PA, or the earnest-but-underfunded and disorganised CCC.

Patricia de Lille’s political career has seen her careen from the radical and sometimes genocidally inclined (but ultimately marginal and unimportant) Pan Africanist Congress, to her private fief the Independent Democrats, to a merger with the DA, and finally a new and once more ANC-aligned GOOD party, serving in cabinet with the ANC twice.

Of course, this does not make her entirely subservient, she famously blew the whistle on the infamous Mbeki arms deal before breaking with the PAC, and the VF+ itself took advantage of an opportunity to run the agricultural department for a term, and have themselves remained as conservative and pro-minority as ever.

But de Lille has gained a reputation for being self-serving and difficult to work with. She also clearly resents the DA more than the ANC, showing a preference for black majoritarianism over minority interests.

Gayton MacKenzie’s Patriotic Alliance is a notoriously corrupt party, but a shrewd one, capable of finding the pulse among disgruntled voters. The reactionary cocktail being offered to voters, which focuses on religiosity, law and order, infrastructural development and frank talk about controversies most people treat with moralistic hysteria, has gotten them far.

But crucially, none of these parties has any real long term strategy for effecting change, and much like the DA, are limited (not absolutely, but broadly speaking limited nonetheless) to minority constituencies.

This reduces these parties to “kingmaker” positions, rather than the much more powerful policy-wedge strategy. They have nothing they want except budget access, and so will never achieve anything long-term.

This failure to have a cohesive reform strategy opens up an opportunity for serious players to get involved.

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Southern Strategy

Part of the reason Coloured voters are so reluctant to trust, is generally that they have not governed themselves since the unification of South Africa, and generally have been subjected to various forms of indirect and exploitative rule. For them, there is little room for faith in politics, and evidence must be ready to hand in a form they can see in their daily lives.

The basis of the Cape’s divisions is largely a result of an incapacity to solve basic problems for ordinary Coloured citizens. These include litter collection and water reticulation, but primary among them is safety and security.

Of course, much of this has to do with SAPS being generally useless, and the ANC protecting the gangs. But something can still be done. Da municipalities are generally loathe to endorse anything that would fall outside of their direct control however. This is a mistake.

AfriForum has a good track record with neighbourhood watches, particularly in the north, but in the Cape, the relative apathy among whites, in part caused by the comparably higher standard of living, means that effective structures are harder to get off the ground. For Coloured communities, the problem is hopelessness. Deployment of experienced organisers and trainers will be essential to building a network of cooperation.

Local law enforcement officials (municipal LEOs, that is) tend to be lazy and toothless. But a well-coordinated municipal strategy would see AfriForum-trained officials deputised, and given the authority to enforce basic laws.

The powers of provincial government include the capacity to order special investigations, which can be used to substitute the absence of detective powers in local enforcement.

This combination can be used to replace most of SAPS capacity across most Cape communities while we continue the indefinite wait for national government to grow a conscience.

The ability to solve basic security issues would be the biggest electoral coup any party has had in the Cape, and the institutions are already there to execute such a plan. They just need to be coordinated.

Solving three basic issues - litter, water, and safety - is low-hanging fruit, relatively speaking, and the first party to get it sorted wins big.

Of course, it goes without saying that the rest of the provincial strategy should aim to achieve Cape independence and to make it a priority. But the dynamics of Cape independence have been discussed at length on this blog, in almost every prior post, and so I will gloss over the details for the time being, and focus on a risky strategy that has a potentially big payoff.

In the next post, I will chat a bit about the Indian minority, where applications of this strategy will be discussed for the East, as well as some potential reasons why they haven’t been so far.