Existing accounts of centralized candidate selection argue that party elites tend to ignore constituent preferences in favor of internal party concerns, leading to accountability deficits. Yet this claim has been largely assumed rather than demonstrated. We provide the first detailed empirical analysis of the relationship between constituent opinion and candidate nominations in the absence of party primaries. We study contemporary South Africa, where conventional wisdom suggests that parties select candidates primarily on the basis of party loyalty. Analyzing more than 8000 local government councillor careers linked with public opinion data, we find that citizen approval predicts incumbent renomination and promotion in minimally competitive constituencies, and that this relationship becomes more pronounced with increasing levels of competition. By contrast, improvements in service provision do not predict career advancement. Under threat of electoral losses, South Africa’s centralized parties strategically remove unpopular incumbents to demonstrate responsiveness to constituent views. However, party-led accountability may not improve development.

现有的关于集中候选人选择的说法认为，政党精英倾向于忽视选民偏好，而倾向于党内关注，从而导致问责赤字。然而，这种说法在很大程度上是假设而不是证明。在没有政党初选的情况下，我们首次对选民意见与候选人提名之间的关系进行了详细的实证分析。我们研究当代南非，那里的传统观点表明政党主要根据政党忠诚度来选择候选人。通过分析与舆论数据相关的 8000 多个地方政府议员职业，我们发现公民批准可以预测竞争程度最低的选区的现任改选和晋升，并且这种关系随着竞争水平的提高而变得更加明显。相比之下，服务提供的改善并不能预测职业发展。在选举失败的威胁下，南非的中央政党战略性地撤换了不受欢迎的现任者，以表现出对选民意见的回应。然而，政党主导的问责制可能不会改善发展。