STEVEN FRIEDMAN: Stopping BLF from participating in elections is wrong

We are serious about a free society when we tolerate what we dislike, not when we cheer those with whom we agree.

This seemingly obvious point is largely foreign to this country’s politics: here, the right to speak and act is important only if we agree with those who are speaking and acting. Which explains why few of us care when a political party is banned from contesting elections.

The banned party is Black First, Land First (BLF) which has been deregistered as a party so cannot fight elections. It has appealed to the courts, but at present, of course, cannot compete for voter support. Since the right to do this is central to democracy, we should expect this to have become a major controversy. It has not.

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An obvious reason is that not many people like BLF — it received only 0.11% of the vote in May. Its strident support for former president Jacob Zuma alienates many. So does its aggressive behaviour to people who criticise it — it has, for example, physically harassed journalists. It is easy to see why not many people feel that politics would lose anything if it can never fight elections again.

But democracy is a system in which everyone can participate,  not just those who are popular. The punishment for unpopularity is winning very few votes, not being banned from the contest. If we start banning parties because they are unpopular, where does this end? With only the current majority party because most voters reject all the others?

But BLF was not deregistered because of how it behaves. Its offence is that only black people can join. This was found to violate a clause in the Electoral Act which says parties may not discriminate on racial grounds. The courts will decide whether this is the right reading of the law. But, whatever they find, this law seems to be a serious obstacle to building democracy here.

If we are to ban all parties that discriminate racially, democracy won’t last long. Does a party that fights for the right of schools to exclude black children not practice discrimination even if membership is open to all? Or one whose leader says most Indians are racist and that he does not support killing whites “yet”?

Even if the law was changed to say only that parties must admit all races, it would still undermine democracy. Democracies should ban discrimination because it hurts people by preventing them from doing something they have a right to do. But there is no right to join a particular party. We suffer harm if we cannot attend a school or practice our trade or play sport because of our race. What harm do we suffer by being excluded from a party?

The case against BLF was not brought by a white person who wanted to join but could not — it was brought by the Freedom Front Plus, whose members would not dream of joining BLF. It did this not because it champions nonracialism; it wanted to curb what BLF was saying about land and stumbled across the membership clause.

Telling parties who they must admit undermines democracy. People have as much right to form a party for members of a race as for people united on any other basis. The law must prevent the party and its members threatening the rights of others — it cannot decide who should belong.

Whatever we think of BLF, democratic principle means it must be allowed to fight elections. Once democracies start banning parties that represent a few, they may do the same to parties that speak for many. If the party we dislike is barred today, the one we like may be barred tomorrow.

• Friedman is research professor with the humanities faculty of the University of Johannesburg.