Lessons from the PP Elections
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by South African Party
Taking a look at yesterday's party president elections, we can make some interesting observations. The voting percentages gives an indication of the active members and the interest levels in each party internally. Since all the parties, except 1, fielded only one candidate, the playing field is quite level. If we take into consideration the fact the Free Africa was the only party where there was real incentive to vote, their performance is all the more disappointing.
The order is as the parties currently is listed on the rankings page.
35% Free Africa (2 candidates)
42% Black Lion Front (1 candidate)
64% South African Party (1 candidate)
9% South African Communist Party (1 candidate)
14% Proud Africans (1 candidate)
From this it should be clear which parties are the ones to turn to if you want more than rhetoric, if you want to actually see something done.
Think about it...
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I guess people don't know that you get 1 experience point for voting. Oh well, suppose that's not incentive enough. 😛
Interesting indeed! It really just shows that analysis of the rate of voter turnout is exceedingly misleading (and, quite honestly, linking it to "rhetoric" vs "action" is disingenuous).
35% of FA equals 45 votes
42% of BLF equals 40 votes
64% of SAP equals 14 votes.
One-horse races tend not to be big drawcards in terms of attracting races, and as far as I know the second candidate for FA was something of a rogue candidate (likely to have minimal support, therefore not altering the reality of a one-horse race).
Your article has, however, re-alerted me to the XP gained for voting and, for that, I thank you and Lucien! 😃
The facts that I wanted to emphasize was
1. that the number of members in a party can be misleading as to the amount of activity actually going on in that party.
2. that 65% of the FA could not be bothered to go voting, even though you get the experience point and even though theirs were the only party where there was a race. If everyone assumed that the second candidate is "rogue", that candidate could easily have gotten more votes, than the preferred candidate.
3. I would not say it is misleading, as it WILL give and indication of activity, although it is not failsafe 😛
BLF and SAP are the way to go!
I would agree with Ovidiusza3 that the percentage turnout for a party presidency election is not an accurate predictor of party "loyalty" (using that term liberally) or, for that matter, future party successes.
I think all but one party having only one candidate says something about the process (i.e. pre-ordained leadership not leadership by choice). It's neither good or bad...it just is.
I think the voter turnout shows more engagement in some parties and less in others.
We'll see what the Congressional elections have in store...that will be a better predictor of what's happening in our political parties...
I haven't been able to visit my party page for the past three days, just get a nice error when I do 🙁
@Peter: I don't think it necessarily means pre-ordained leadership. In the SAP for instance, we held a primary election, where we had two candidates. The one who stood in the "official" elections, were the democratic winner of that process.
The fact still remains that some parties either have a larger percentage active members, or their leadership is more able to engage their members. Either of those is a big positive to have in a party, I reckon 🙂
BLF itself choose one candidate on our forums before the election because it saves 2G that can't be accessed...it's financially responsible to pick a candidate before the election to save money that won't be used again until the admins decide to let PP's access the funds
I just have to say this...
What do you want, A large party with a minority of active members?
Or
A Small party with a majority being active and behind you?
Tell me which gets more done? In Congress, bringing in members and so on... Having 10 out of 100 work sucks when compared to 15 out of 20.
The last few elections have shown that there are many inactive members in both BLF and FA, but if you look on the forums, articles and comments, there are far fewer FA than BLF. There are some standout FA members to be sure (particularly Bazti and Boere Generaal), but other than those few, I've seen little FA participation in any way. The only sure way to bring most of them out seems to be by getting someone upset. So the lack of voting on their part is not surprising.
The BLF voted on Siroe before-hand, but if I remember correctly, there weren't any other members as serious about taking it as Siroe was. Our % would have been slightly higher if I had been allowed to vote too. I don't know if it was my pc, a bug or some rule I forgot, but I wasn't able to vote yesterday.
I agree Zag, that active members are a key to a party's success, which is why we also chose Siroe. He and Gabe are great at attracting members and getting them active. Hopefully we can get more of our members to start participating now, especially since our numbers are increasing almost daily. The problem is that with a small party, as long as you are in the minority, your voice is barely heard no matter how active your small group is. The BLF learned this early and often back when we started.
@Jizzie: Agreed, which is why the SAP is actively encouraging ways of working together with larger, ACTIVE parties where our policies and goals overlap. We want to improve eSA, and unnecessary bickering between parties, for no good reason, is definitely counter-productive.
The SAP reminds me a lot of the BLF when we first started, ideologies aside, which is why I will enjoy watching you guys grow and rise up. I think you guys have already done a lot of good for SA and I hope we can keep working together.