Post 2019 elections: Time for electoral reform and dusting off the Van Zyl Slabbert Report
22 May 2019
In the aftermath of a highly-contested national and provincial election, questions must be asked why only 65.99% of registered voters turned out to vote, compared with 89.3% in 1999. There might be many factors contributing to this low turnout, such as voter disillusionment following State capture, corruption, lack of accountability and an ailing economy. However, there are other possible explanations: it may be that voters do not feel that they are properly represented by the people who sit in Parliament; and that Parliament has simply become a rubber stamp in the hands of the Executive.
The real problem may be the lack of a proper relationship between voters and their representatives in Parliament - the root of which, may lie in our electoral system itself.
On national and provincial level, as opposed to local government elections, we only vote for registered political parties contesting elections. In accordance with the Electoral Act,these registered political partiesmust submit a list of candidates to the Independent Election Commission (IEC) corresponding with the number of seats in Parliament. The party’s representation in the National Assembly (NA) - i.e. number of seats allocated to the party - proportionally reflects the number of votes received by the party, based on a formula. The same occurs at provincial level in the National Council of Provinces (NCOP). There are 400 seats in the NA, of which 200 are filled from parties’ regional lists and the remaining 200 are filled from the parties’ national list. After the 2019 general elections, the ANC were accordingly allocated 230 seats in the NA, with the two major opposition parties, the DA and EFF, following with 84 and 44 seats respectively.
The above system is known as the closed-list proportional representation system. The advantage with the proportional representation system is that smaller parties are also represented in Parliament, and it is a relatively simple and inclusive electoral system. The downside, however, is the disconnect between the electorate and Members of Parliament (MPs). As the electorate has no power over the political party’s candidate list and who effectively represents the party in Parliament, dissatisfaction by the electorate can only be truly exercised at the next general election, against the party as a whole.