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Chapter 3 - DEMOCRACY, GOVERNMENT & PUBLIC PARTICIPATION

Electoral System and Electing a government

The Electoral System for the National Assembly is the direct universal adult franchise proportional representation system. 

The local government electoral system differs from the national and provincial electoral system of pure proportional representation. District councils are partially elected on the basis of proportional representation, and partially appointed by the councils of local municipalities within the district.

South Africa holds national, provincial and local elections every five years although the local government elections occur two years after the national and provincial elections. There are debates about aligning the dates of the national and local government elections. However, this would require an amendment to the Constitution.

Having regular, free and fair elections is one of the cornerstones of democracy. This goes together with other important democratic principles such as the right to vote, to choose which party you want to belong to and to accept the results of an election.

There are different ways to elect representatives into government, including the system of proportional representative and the constituency-based system. The South African national and provincial elections are based on the system of proportional representation while the local government electoral system is partly based on proportional representation and constituency-based.

Proportional representation

This means that parties get a certain number of seats in parliament according to the percentage of votes that they get in an election. So, for example, if your party gets 15% of all the votes in the country then it gets 15% of the seats in Parliament .

There are 400 seats in the national parliament. So for every 1% of the vote a party gets 4 seats. This example shows how seats are allocated if only 4 parties have won votes in the election.

National Elections

National constituency-based elections

According to this system, the country is divided up into voting areas called constituencies. Each political party chooses one person to represent the party in each constituency. This person is called the party's candidate. People in a constituency, vote for the candidate of their choice. So, a person only goes to parliament  if he or she gets the most votes in that constituency.

The local government electoral system differs from the national and provincial electoral system of pure proportional representation. District councils are partially elected on the basis of proportional representation, and partially appointed by the councils of local municipalities within the district.

In the eight Metropolitan Councils of SA the proportional and constituency based systems apply. The 8 Metropolitan Councils are the City of Johannesburg, The City of Tshwane, EThekwini, Ekurhuleni, Magaung, Buffalo City, the City of Cape Town and Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality.

Local Government Electoral System

The local government electoral system differs from the national and provincial electoral system of pure proportional representation. District councils are partially elected on the basis of proportional representation, and partially appointed by the councils of local municipalities within the district.

In the eight Metropolitan Councils of SA the proportional and constituency based systems apply. The 8 Metropolitan Councils are the City of Johannesburg, The City of Tshwane, EThekwini, Ekurhuleni, Magaung, Buffalo City, the City of Cape Town and Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality.