Talk:List of political parties in South Africa

Minority Front
The minority front (MF) IS represented in the parliament.

I can't find l. luyts federal alliance (1999-2004 in the national assembly) in one of these categories --Severino 13:07, 3 November 2006 (UTC)


 * I've added them to the list of parties not represented in parliament. Once the floor crossing period is over, and everything is clear, we can correct the list of parties represented in parliament. Greenman 11:52, 3 September 2005 (UTC)

Where is the United Democratic Front? I know it was never a true political party, and is now defunct (though soon to be revived?) but it was very important and there seems to be nothing on it in Wikipedia. --Taejo 13:20, 8 October 2005 (UTC)


 * You've partially answered your own question. It was never a formal political party. It was a proxy for the then illegal ANC. Roger (talk) 18:44, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

This article needs an update! Roger (talk) 18:53, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

New Lekota/Shilowa party
Please don't add it yet. It has not yet been established or registered. The proposed name released to the media today could be problematic - the IEC may reject it as there is another party with a very similar name and it also can be confused with the Southern African Development Community. The official launch is scheduled for 16 December. Please wait until then. Roger (talk) 18:14, 3 November 2008 (UTC)


 * The party exists, with refs to its current name in Reuters, BBC, News24, Sunday Times, IOL: SADEC. The fact that the name may change doesn't mean it's not a political party, and per news sources the second most notable political party currently in South Africa. It warrants inclusion for being incredibly notable - if the name changes then the name changes. You wouldn't exclude another important party because their name may change in the future. -- Jeandré, 2008-11-04t11:27z


 * I take a more legalistic view. The party does not exist yet. Yes there is a proto-organisation that is provisionally calling itself the South African Democratic Congress. But in terms of the law it is not a political party unless it is registered as such with the Independent Electoral Commission. That has not yet happened. The organisation in fact announced that they would be registering on or around 16 December. It's proposed name has already failed to be acceptable in terms of the rules of the IEC. The fact that most of the press are ignorant of the law is no surprise and also not sufficient reason to let this addition stand here. I really believe we should let the situation play itself out before we add it to the list. Wikipedia is not a newspaper. Roger (talk) 15:55, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Centre/Left/Right??
Where do the categorisations of the parties listed here come from? On what basis are the DA and the UDM more left than the ID, for example? On what basis is NADECO more right than the UCDP? Greenman (talk) 23:18, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

Are all of these really parties?
In South Africa an organisation is only a political party if it registered as such with the Independent Electoral Commission. There are a number of entries in the "Parties unrepresented in Parliament" list which I doubt are actually currently registered. If they were never registered they don't belong in this article at all. If they were at one time registered they should be listed under "Defunct parties". Working through the query process at to verify the status of all the parties mentioned is quite tedious but I will do it over the next few days. Roger (talk) 19:26, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

I'm afraid that someone made an awful joke in the article. It is the revolting sentance by the name of the National Congress. Could You remove it? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.9.161.160 (talk) 00:07, 16 February 2014 (UTC)

Remark about president Zuma
Someone posted an awful remark in the article. Could You remove it? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.9.161.160 (talk) 00:09, 16 February 2014 (UTC)


 * Am I imagining that the vandalism is still visible after it has been removed? I have refreshed my browser several times but can still see it. I would like to know how to fix it for next time. Helen  Online  07:48, 16 February 2014 (UTC)
 * all looks OK to me. Bypass your cache, or purge the page if the issues continue. -- Mdann 52   talk to me!  08:30, 16 February 2014 (UTC)


 * Thanks, whatever you did fixed it. Helen  Online  08:47, 16 February 2014 (UTC)

I'm the one who complained - everything is OK now. Thank You very much. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.185.255.198 (talk) 22:28, 16 February 2014 (UTC)

Proposal to remove redlinked entries
I propose removing the redlinked articles from the list. There are hundreds of current and defunct parties that are not at all notable and will probably never get an article, and the list will grow unworkable if they are all listed. Many of the 'current' parties are effectively inactive, and not standing for any elections, even if they remain registered. If a party gets an article, it can then be listed here. See also WP:WTAF Greenman (talk) 09:03, 15 April 2014 (UTC)


 * No objection here, as the article is not getting the attention it needs. Note that all parties contesting the 2014 general election are listed in that article, which is reasonably up to date and could be linked here. Helen  Online  09:16, 15 April 2014 (UTC)


 * I disagree. If a party is (or was) properly registered according to the IEC it should be listed - regardless of there being an article about it or not. Whether it should be wikilinked is a separate issue and should be guided by WP:Redlink. The existence of something in the world is not dependent on an article existing in WP - WP does not create reality, we merely attempt to reflect some aspects of it. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 16:28, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

It was previously felt that the listings that are redlinked should be kept (if they are/were registered with the IEC). A user removed a whole chunk with no discussion (edit), so I'm reverting once more, and it can be discussed here. Greenman (talk) 18:16, 11 April 2016 (UTC)

Categorising parties
I don't agree with the recent change to categorise parties. The list should revert to an alphabetical list. The categories are ambiguous (can a party be Christian and Afrikaner nationalist?), incomplete (why are these categories selected over others) and unsourced. In political party articles, these kinds of labels are usually contentious and frequently adjusted without good reason. "Left-wing" is a particularly vacuous term - many parties are left-socially and right economically, for example, but claim or reject the term "left-wing" for branding reasons. Leave controversial categorising to the articles, not a list page. Greenman (talk) 22:31, 5 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Since there were no objections, will restore the alphabetical list. Greenman (talk) 14:03, 26 August 2016 (UTC)

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A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion
The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion: Participate in the deletion discussion at the. —Community Tech bot (talk) 00:23, 13 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Insigne Africae australis.svg

List to Tables Overhaul
This list is incomplete. I am going edit this page with tables to categorise the different levels that political parties operate in South Africa. In this way all political parties that exist and have existed will be listed. They are Parliamentary Parties, Former Parliamentary Parties, Extra-Parliamentary Parties, Defunct Parties & Pre-1910 South African Parties. Former Parliamentary Parties will be further divided into Active Extra-Parliamentary Parties, Defunct Parliamentary Parties, and Representative Council and Bantustan Parties. Defunct Parliamentary Parties will also be further divided into 3 sections: 1994-present, 1961-1994, and 1910-1961. Jordan Solo (talk) 18:55, 4 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Welcome and thanks for your efforts. It's an ambitious target! A couple of points:


 * Year founded is a valuable addition for all sections (year defunct would be interesting, but very hard to get accurate data for. Some parties formally disband, others simply fade away)
 * Section headings should be sentence case (so Political parties rather than Political Parties. See Manual_of_Style (I know they weren't all before).
 * I have a weak preference for having the parliamentary list alphabetical, not ordered by number of seats. This is not an election results page, and someone searching for, say, ACDP would expect to find it near the top (I know also this was changed before you started working on it). Since the table is sortable, this is basically a minor preference for the default order to be alphabetical - it can be sorted by any of the fields the user chooses.
 * I have a strong preference for excluding the ideologies column. From experience, this is one of the most contested topics on many party pages, and changes are frequent, whether without citations at all, or whether by choosing citations to suit the contributor's classification choice. Whether changes over time, contesting wings of the party, outsider's various classifications, deciding on a classification is contentious, and hard to maintain. You have, for example, chosen a subset of the ideologies listed on the PAC page. Why not African socialism? My point is not about whether or not that classification is needed, but about the debates around it being tedious and not helpful on this page, which is primarily a list. Greenman (talk) 21:15, 4 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Yeay! My first Wikipedian message not from a bot. And thanks Greenman. I hear you and mostly agree with your points, so:


 * Don't worry, I'm a Grammar Nazi. Punctuation and capitalisation is key for me to provide some regularity in this slowly maddening world.
 * All the basic info such as party founding, dissolving and ideology is based entirely on the info I can glean from the wiki page. But at a later stage I will update them here and on the wiki page, cuz some parties' pages really need updating and cleaning.
 * For Parliamentary parties alone they're sorted by number of seats in the National Assembly. But that list is sortable, so a user can easily list them by name/abbreviation/etc.
 * I have a preference to use ideology as a rule of thumb. Meaning that instead of taking that idea as gospel, the user can get a general idea of what the party stands for. I will concede that I will leave out ideology for the Extra-Parliamentary Parties, because they have yet to propose/amend laws which demonstrates their ideological goals.
 * I propose that to determine the parties' ideologies we cite their constitution & manifesto and read how the party describes itself ideologically.
 * I have a strong preference against using the left-right spectrum cuz those labels can be seen as highly subjective, and differs from country to country.
 * The main inspiration for column head titles are the US, UK, Canadian & Australian political parties' lists.
 * Lastly I would make a request (I'm basically begging now) on how edit column widths. I've been editing through visual editing since forever. I would greatly appreciate it that the widths are adjusted so that the leader names are on the same line. Jordan Solo (talk) 22:06, 4 February 2021 (UTC)
 * You can use nowrap, I've given an example in this edit. I'm old-school and do everything in the text editor, I find it much quicker. Greenman (talk) 23:05, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

COSATU: should it be here?
COSATU both as a social organisation & politically, as a member of the Tripartite Alliance, plays a major role in our political environment & has done so since its inception. I think it should be listed here under ‘Extra-parliamentary parties’. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congress_of_South_African_Trade_Unions IDW acolyte (talk) 07:59, 26 August 2022 (UTC)


 * @IDW acolyte COSATU has never been a political party. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 20:47, 14 March 2023 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion
The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion: Participate in the deletion discussion at the. —Community Tech bot (talk) 07:37, 5 December 2022 (UTC)
 * Coat of Arms of South Africa in vector SVG.svg

Registration 2023-11-18
What does the IEC do with a very very large list Dead people as registered... People dead over 19 years dead... Family members that I have death certificate of... Who I personally know has never registered to vote OR have never ever voted. PLEASE COMPARE AND OR CROSS REFERENCES THE IEC'S 2.9M "REGISTRATIONS" TO DEAD PEOPLE!!? AND PUBLISH THE TRUE RESULTS. 41.13.20.116 (talk) 13:12, 22 November 2023 (UTC)

Move discussion in progress
There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:List of political parties in Abkhazia which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 16:26, 29 March 2024 (UTC)