“A vote for a smaller party in the upcoming municipal elections is not a waste,” says political analyst Mari Harris of market research firm Ipsos SA. Her statement follows calls by the EFF and DA to not vote for smaller political parties.

According to them, smaller parties will not be able to represent their voters as effectively as bigger parties.

However, Harris says this sentiment would be legitimate only if South Africa had a majority voting system.

According to the Electoral Commission of South Africa, a mixed or hybrid system, making use of both the ward system and the proportional representation system, is used for municipal elections in South Africa Harris says this means all votes contribute to the result, rather than only the majority of votes.

“More than 45% of South Africa’s voters feel that the bigger parties like the ANC, DA and EFF do not represent their needs. Therefore, they resort to smaller parties,” says Harris.

But this is not the only reason smaller parties are important. According to Harris, there is no doubt that coalitions will play an even bigger role in the post-elections political landscape than they did in 2016.

“Smaller parties will be able to play kingmakers for the bigger parties.”

Harris says coalitions after the 2016 elections were not a great success, but hopes lessons were learnt and they fare better this time.

“The Freedom Front Plus, in particular, could be one of the more important kingmakers,” she says.

“ActionSA looks like a party that can also gather more votes than what is expected.”

According to Harris, Patricia de Lille’s Good party will play a significant role in the Western Cape, and the ACDP – with a bigger national presence – can also expect to change the course of the election.