The current spate of floor-crossings, earlier last month can be reduced to nothing more than a game of 'musical chairs', leaving our not-so-fledgling democracy in a marshy shambles. The irrational fluidity with which the process is undertaken has reduced participants to amoebic proportions, what with some councilors resorting to both bribery and/or physically beating each other up, as was the case between members of the DA and NPP at the midnight deadline at IEC offices in Pretoria.

Lets be frank, despite the intentions to shroud it in affirming rhetoric, the floor-crossing shenanigans of September raise far too many questions about our democracy. Floor-crossing at best, serves only to legitimate a kind of organizational head-hunting (or poaching, if you like) in order to pool and concentrate top political resource. The shortsightedness in employing such a devious yet simplistic game is alarming when one contemplates the current arrogance prevailing in the National Assembly.

One might ask what right do our elected representatives of the assembly assume in these wanton and random defections that effectively defy the will of the electorate. Floor-crossing allows representatives of the polity, elected for the people, by the people, to defect with impunity to another party. By extension, this has been taken to mean potential defection to either existing or new parties, reducing the political trend to a ritualistic mating ceremony, complete with garlanding regalia and the works, and giving birth to some rather horrendous (and often short-lived) mutations.

 
To illustrate the resultant fragmentation, the Government Gazette informs that twelve new political parties were registered since June this year: Christian Democratic Alliance, Federal Congress, National Alliance, Social Democratic Party, National People's Party, People's Democratic Movement, African People's Convention, New Vision Party, Civic Alliance of South Africa, South African Political Party, Federal African Convention and the Eden Forum. All the parties are registered nationally, except for the Eden Forum which is registered municipally. In this way, the flailing opposition is further shredded to virtual nothingness. As if the challenges posed by the actual floor-crossing debacle are not proof enough, this resultant chaos makes for debilitating consequences for democracy in South Africa.

 
Floor-crossing effectively robs voters of the mandate given to their political party of choice. According to the Government Gazette released soon after the closing of the latest floor-crossing period which ended at midnight on 15 September, some 250 municipal councilors crossed the floor successfully.  During this period, the politico-organisational composition of 128 municipalities were tampered with.

Since every seat in the National Assembly represents a significant proportion of the electorate, the structural result of every floor-crossing effectively topples the intention of the voting public. Uncertainty becomes rampant, both within the Assembly, and within the sphere of the political arena. In addition, a fragmented and weaker opposition means that the balance of power is further skewed, and the ruling party left with a rather unhealthy apathy regards responsibility to service delivery and accountability to the electorate.

In an interview with the SABC earlier this month, UDM leader Bantu Holomisa highlighted significant challenges in the floor-crossing debacle, that further point to the shortsighted approach with which they are undertaken. Holomisa has pointed out the twin irresponsibility's of party members who fail to hand over signing powers (for party funding) upon defecting, and on local and provincial councilors who fail to ensure that this is carried out effectively.

In numerous ways, floor-crossing opens the locus of politics to unnecessary weaknesses that subvert the democratic intent. In an effort to maintain the democratic representative balance, defectors must rather be seen as their label suggests: unhappy to continue in their representative post as elected and awarded to them by the will of the people, and subsequently relieved of their assumed burden.

The choice to defection, then, is the choice to be removed from the sphere of the National Assembly and/or political sphere. In this way, the intentions of democracy-affirming manifestos are upheld. The slogan ''for the people, by the people'' presupposes that the people shall govern and that the representative core shall undertake a balanced political dynamic in order to ensure that the needs of the electorate and the viability of the nation and the state are sustained. Floor-crossing has effectively bull-dozed this thesis in simplistic arrogance, leaving academics, politicians and the public baffled at the shortsighted approaches to representative governance and accountability. By implication, the National Assembly is reduced to nothing more than a circus act of wobbly trapeze artists opting for greener grass job options above their responsibility to the electorate. The result: a battering of devastating proportions to the will of the people, and gross commodification of the National Assembly, and governance in particular. The challenge is for the representative balance to be maintained.

For now, the ANC continues once again, to take an ''eat your veggies'' approach to the floor-crossing debacle. Come December, when the ruling party congregates in the Limpopo Province, one can only hope that the seriousness of the situation is given the attention it deserves and these instruments of chaos weeded out once and for all.

Shafinaaz Hassim is the author of Daughters are Diamonds: Honour, Shame & Seclusion - A South African perspective.