Who does musical chairs help?

If you're old enough to remember when the Congress of the People (Cope) was still politically relevant, you're old enough to remember when Cope started out with that brilliant campaign of free advertising.

- RICHARD CHEMALY

They would schedule the high-profile names defecting from other parties to join them so that the defections are staggered. That way, you'd have a continuous stream of media attention.

Thing is, who did that really benefit? Maybe it benefited us in that we were more aware of Cope, but it certainly benefited Team Mosiuoa Lekota far more.

What did South Africans get from that though? A couple of T-shirts and the hong greatest hong hong parliamentary hong sound clip in history hong Willie Madisha hong.

Who are these defections for? The party, person or voter? Even when they amended the constitution to allow members to cross the floor, what did the average South African get out of it?

Let's not be fooled that this is based on a war of ideas. Oh, you suddenly thought you vibe more with the blue party than the yellow one, Neville Delport? And a week after the DA lost two councillors to the Patriotic Alliance (PA), they claimed two from the ANC?