INTRODUCTION
South Africa is a republic and a constitutional democracy. Republic and constitutional democracy are identical in every aspect except one In a constitutional democracy, the democratic process allows people to select their leader and to take part in the decision making processes. Whereas in a republic the sovereignty is in each individual person either directly, or through representative chosen by the people, to whom those powers are specially delegated. South African Government, 1996).
Unlike other countries like the USA, Indonesia and Zimbabwe, South Africa does not directly elect its president as the country uses a party political system. This means that the citizen votes for the party and not individuals. According to Section 34 of the South African Constitution of 1996, the president of the republic was elected by the national assembly during the first sitting of the house after the swearing-in of Members of Parliament ( South African Government, 1996). President Cyril Ramaphosa was elected unopposed with the opposition not offering a candidate noting that the majority party was still the ANC.
The 2019 PARLIAMENTARY ELECTIONS
The 2019 South Africa elections were held Monday, May 8, 2019. These elections occurred during Cyril Ramaphosa acting as president. 48 political parties contested the national ballot. On the 11 May 2019, it was announced that the ANC has won the sixth general election, they received an over 10 million votes (57.5%), followed by the DA (20.8%) and EFF (0.8%). The ANC also retained its majority in all provinces except the Western Cape where it is the official opposition to the DA. The DA is the opposition once again in the Northern Cape, Eastern Cape, Free State and Gauteng, while the EFF is yet again the opposition in Limpopo and North West while taking that role from the DA in Mpumalanga.
Parliament has 400 seats which are allocated proportionally to the parties who received the highest number of votes. In the Sixth Parliament, 14 parties will be represented (PMG PARLIAMENTARY MONITORING GROUP, 2019). President Ramaphosa entered Parliament on 20 June finally serving his own presidential term – and on his own terms – almost – for the balancing act between intraparty factionalism and fixing the state will be tricky to navigate.
SOUTH AFRICAN ELECTION PROCESS AND ACCOUNTABILITY
We have also heard it said many times before: the South African electoral system does not provide a sufficient link between the citizen and the elected representative. Many have argued that our proportional representation list system diminishes levels of accountability. Yet, we have also seen our local government system that has greater built-in accountability fail dismally in relation to links with citizens and accountability. So, it’s a tricky issue and one that South Africa has been grappling with for a number of years. At the end of 2017, a High-Level Panel on the assessment of key legislation and the acceleration of fundamental change recommended that South Africans should be able to directly elect their Members of Parliament (MPs).
The panel has recommended that Parliament “amend the Electoral Act to provide for an electoral system that makes MPs accountable to defined constituencies on proportional representation and constituency system for national elections”.
The party owns the seat and thus has the ultimate influence over an MP. In its founding provisions, the Constitution identifies “Universal adult suffrage, a national common voter’s roll, regular elections and a multi-party system of democratic government, to ensure accountability, responsiveness, and openness” as essential components of any new electoral system (February 2019) In 2002, Cabinet appointed an electoral task team (ETT) to formulate the new electoral laws for the 2004 elections and beyond. The task team was chaired by the late Frederik van Zyl Slabbert and consisted of members of government and civil society. Every electoral system has its pros and cons, of course. The South African electoral system is characterised by simplicity, inclusiveness and a strong sense of fairness. ( South African Government, 2002).
These characteristics have, arguably, helped to strengthen our democracy and ensure the legitimacy of democratic processes among South Africans However, since the 1999 general elections, a significant weakness has emerged within the electoral system. South Africa’s use of proportional representation based on a closed party list system seems to generate a deficit in accountability, particularly in the context of one-party dominance. Initially, the South African electoral system as crafted in the interim constitution of 1994 was welcomed. Near-perfect proportional representation with no threshold mirrored the national and provincial electorate, thus ensuring that the national and provincial legislatures were directly and widely representative and afforded a strong sense of inclusivity (South African Government, 1994).
The system followed recommendations from comparative constitutionalists on design for “divided societies”. The results of the first election were widely accepted and therefore had a moderating effect during a potentially volatile time. The ETT addressed whether or not an electoral system per se had the ability to guarantee accountability, as opposed to other institutional arrangements that govern representatives’ behaviour while in office, such as Chapter 9 institutions (Ibid) In a first-past-the-post system, representatives are individually scrutinised, but the party as a whole is subject to less critical treatment
PROPOSED CHANGES TO THE ELECTORAL SYSTEM
The majority proposal, better known as the “69 constituency option”, proposed expanding the number of multi-member constituencies from 9 to 69. Three hundred of the 400 total seats would be assigned by this method. The remaining 100 would be decided according to national closed lists, in order to regain proportionality.It is worth noting that within the course of the ETT’s deliberations, an open list PR system was proposed to bring about the correct balance between individual and party accountability.
Voters would choose a party and then go on to rank candidates in the order in which they think they should be elected to Parliament, depending on the proportion of votes the party received. Candidates would be beholden to voters to rank them favourably. Proportionality would not be compromised. Challenges to an open list system arise with the sheer number of candidates (200+ in some cases), and the level of literacy required to vote in such a manner. The report was tabled in March 2003, and the Parliament voted to revisit the recommendations (Ibid) Instead, however, Cabinet adopted the ETT’s minority position, which was not to introduce any changes to the electoral system. The argument forwarded by the Home Affairs Minister Mangosuthu Buthelezi was that there was insufficient time before the 2004 election to implement the changes.
CONCLUSION
Overall, South Africa’s electoral system requires reform and the report by the ETT needs to be seriously addressed. The electoral system in its current form does indeed espouse and support democratic values of fairness and inclusivity while maintaining its simplicity. But it is on the key democratic value of accountability where the system remains weak. The deficit in accountability found within South Africa’s electoral system has weakened key institutions and has enabled the emergence of a one-party dominant system and, more importantly, the dominance of party executives.
Nkosana Jack is an NEC member of SASCO. He writes in his personal capacity.