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Chapter 3 - DEMOCRACY, GOVERNMENT & PUBLIC PARTICIPATION
Electing a government
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 Constitution says elections must be based on the system of proportional representation
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.
| Example |
Example |
If a party gets this % of the votes:
African National Congress 64 %
Democratic Party 20 %
Inkatha Freedom Party 10 %
Pan-Africanist Congress 6% |
it will get this number of seats:
256 seats
80 seats
40 seats
24 seats |
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 the 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.
What does proportional representation mean?
- Only members of parties can stand for election.
- People vote for the party they like, not for a person they like. Each party chooses its own list of candidates for parliament.
- The party holds all its seats in parliament. The party appoints its own members to take those seats, according to party lists. It can appoint a different member to take over a seat. So parties have central control over the selection of Members of Parliament (MPs).
- MPs do not represent the voters of a specific constituency or area.
- MPs are directly accountable to their party.
- If an MP resigns or is expelled from the party then he or she loses the seat. The party then appoints another person in that person's place. Voters know that the party they voted for will keep its seats, even if individual MPs change parties.
- Minority parties can win seats if they have enough voters in the country altogether who support them, even if they would not have enough support to win in any one area.
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What does the constituency-based system mean?
- Independent candidates, who don't belong to any party, can stand for parliament. They declare themselves candidates in a particular constituency.
- People vote for a candidate, either because they like the party that the candidate represents or because they like the candidate as a person.
- Individual MPs hold seats.
- MPs represent the voters in a specific constituency.
- MPs are directly accountable to people in their area who have voted for them.
- MPs keep their seats and can move from one party to another if they choose. The political party does not have the power to take away their seat. Voters cannot be sure that the MP they voted for will stay with the same party.
- Minority parties are likely to suffer in an election based on this system, because they may not have enough voters who support them in any single constituency.
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