Who is funding South Africa's political parties?
Follow the donations
South Africa will have its national elections on the 29th of May 2024 and it is worth looking into who is funding our politicians.
Below is a list of the major political donations that have been declared.
Essentially, the political donations come from legacy mining oligarch families, such as the Oppenheimer, and new blood like Patrice Motsepe (Ramaphosa’s brother in law).
It is worth noting that they tend to “spread the wealth” around, which is usually an indication that they want certain policies. Patrice Motsepe for example is giving money to both the Freedom Front Plus and Julius Malema (two ideologically opposed parties) and the Oppenheimer legacy trust is donating to both the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) and the Democratic Alliance.
The total amount of money for the fourth quarter (between R10-R20 million per individual) is not as much as I would have anticipated “to buy an election”.
It’s questionable, in my view, how much influence oligarchs truly have over South Africa’s political scene, because as the opinion polls show, South Africa’s election results is likely to be a racial census.
I don’t expect that the ANC will lose power. There have been suspicions that they might get below 51%, but when I looked closer into those polls, I found that the funding and methodology were questionable.