The coattail corollary in politics is the theory that a popular candidate at the top of the list benefits those in the same party down the list.
In local government elections, you vote for a councillor on a proportional representation list, then you might vote for that party’s ward or district councillor, or mayor candidate.
But what do we call it when the person, from whom the benefit flows, is not on the candidate list?
What if the person is not even personally that popular or credible?
Let us call it ghost coattails. That is what I believe is happening with the DA's application to have the Electoral Court set aside the proportional representation (PR) lists of ActionSA, the EFF, MKP and GOOD because they featured only one candidate.
Central to the case is the supplementation of PR councillor candidates, or Item 17, which allows political parties to supplement their PR lists if they named fewer councillors than they are entitled to due to their performance in the elections.
The DA argues that ActionSA, the EFF, MKP, and GOOD acted in bad faith by submitting only one name, a claim the political parties dismissed.
This is despite the Electoral Commission's argument that the DA’s case is without merit in law, as the commission has no power to inquire into the motives of a party that complies with Item 17 and the scheme does not permit it to treat one party differently from another based on its motives, as "political motives", whatever they may be, are legally irrelevant to the validity of the lists.
How relevant are political parties’ political motives in voters’ eyes?
Voters should, for several different reasons, take note of the DA’s legal challenge which centres on claims that ActionSA, the EFF, MK Party and GOOD are concealing their proportional representation (PR) councillor candidates by submitting PR lists with a single name and that by submitting a single name on the PR lists during the official candidate nomination window, these parties are exploiting a loophole to bypass public scrutiny.
The voter is never wrong, and each vote counts equally in our elections.
In this era of vox pops, phone-ins, focus groups and constant polls, this view of democracy is more prevalent than ever.
Several studies and opinion polls reverently refer to switchers from legacy political parties that have appeared on ballot papers for decades as “hero voters” and “born-free voters”.
Meanwhile, parties in government often say in their election manifestos that they are “in the service of” the electorate.
Newcomer parties and independents are increasingly shaping our fragmented politics by aggressively wooing voters and driving unprecedented political competition in several municipalities.
Tough competition between political parties and independents is also contributing to the unpredictable election outcomes.
It is no exaggeration to say we are all swing voters now, some because their traditional party has no candidates on the ballot at all.
Election promises disconnected from identifiable credible candidates are daylight robbery.
Political parties leaning on that deception, including the DA which has submitted one-candidate PR lists in at least 12 KZN municipalities, have failed to build election campaign momentum and shake off narratives of ineffectiveness.
Voters have many reasons to suspect deception and predictably squawk about political manoeuvres calculated to entrench influence in government.
But political parties acted within the law when submitting their one-candidate PR lists.
They fulfilled their duty to enter the election race, to a degree. That is crucial.
By voting for faceless candidates, the electorate risks bringing to power parties that are not transparent about the detailed ingredients upon which they seek a political mandate.
Such parties are guided by voter support-entitlement and a geriatric gentility.
The fast pace of South African politics over the past decade, with extra by-elections, parties frequently changing leaders and policy directions, and sudden electoral surges and collapses, suggests that politicians have become more scared of voters — and that voters have become less deferential towards them.
This pattern is reflected in lessons from cross-border municipality disputes, where voters switched support away from parties that ignored their preferred choices on which provinces they wanted to fall under.
The long, sometimes too-forgiving relationships between voters and parties that existed for most of the early years of our democracy attained in 1994, and the patience of many voters towards their municipal council chamber incumbent tribes when they were in power, seem to be disappearing for good.
But is this voter-dominated politics an entirely welcome development in the era of low voter turnout in municipal elections and by-elections?
Recent experience interacting with voters as part of the Election Monitoring Network civic and voter educators suggests not.
In other words, millions of voters made poor choices in previous elections, and we are all living with the consequences.
Unscrupulous politicians have misled these voters, including by concealing candidate identities.
But placing all the blame for our rundown acrimonious country on politicians, as much of the public and the media habitually do, is a convenient way for many voters to avoid thinking about their own complicity in what has gone wrong.
One way to picture a healthier democracy is as a place where voters and politicians frequently clash but with mutual respect, and an awareness that they are co-creators of a political culture.
It may be optimistic to expect grumpy violent SA to become such a country, not least because there is so much killing of innocent lives for motives that are directly and indirectly related to political power.
According to Global Initiative Against Transnational Organised Crime data, which confirms the Election Monitoring Network quarterly reports, more than 42 people serving as ward councillors, political party campaigners, members of civic organisations and traditional leaders have been killed in suspected political assassinations since January — already exceeding the full-year totals for both the 2021 and 2024 election years.
Politicians easily become too sure of themselves and too distant from reality, and punishing them for those flaws is crucial for free and fair democratic elections.
But voters can develop those flaws, too. Until more of us realise that, our fickle unhappy politics will continue.