H

OW DO WE MAKE OUR CHOSEN

representatives more

accountable to the country’s

general populace? That has been

the focus of most of our conversations

about electoral reform.

Our current system of proportional

representation is designed to ensure that

every vote cast in an election is efficiently

allocated to ensure the broadest level

of representation of citizens within our

legislative arm of government. However,

our proportional representation system

dramatically decreases the ability to

hold elected officials accountable. Votes

are allocated to a party rather than to

an individual. This incentivises elected

officials to be more responsive to their

political party than to those who elected

them. The choice of this system was made

in 1994, to ensure that all groupings within

society would be able to find political

expression within our parliament.

The belief was that our elected

officials would care about us. Over the last

28 years, it has become evident that they

don’t.

It is no surprise that the lack of

electoral reform is not the result of a

lack of effort by citizens or civil society.

It is the result of the choices our elected

representatives have made. The truth of

our situation is that substantive electoral

reform remains a near impossibility in

our current democratic dispensation. Two

extraordinary activities would have to take

place to alter our electoral system. The first

would require all our political parties, who

have been incentivised to maintain our

current electoral system, to actively fall

on their sword. The second would require

a democratic activity that has never been

tested before in our post-1994 democracy.

The mandate of the

Constitutional Court

In 2019, the Constitutional Court told our

parliament that excluding independent

candidates from our electoral system

was unconstitutional. As a result, our

parliament was responsible for making the

appropriate amendments to the Electoral

Act.

However, rather than parliament

leading the charge for reform, the task

was eventually given to the Department

of Home Affairs. The Department

subsequently appointed an independent

ministerial task team to advise parliament

on the best way to include independent

candidates in the electoral process.

There were two options placed in

front of our parliament by the Ministerial

Task Team. One option advocated for

a substantive reform that would make

parliamentarians more accountable to

constituencies in the country. The other

option sought a more minimalist approach

that would maintain the incentive to be

more accountable to the party rather than

the citizenry. The inclusion of independent

candidates remains present for both

proposed options. The choice to go with the

more minimalist approach demonstrates

parliament’s continued disdain for

substantive electoral reform.

Parliament has history on this

This is not the first time that parliament

has decided to ignore the advice of an

independent panel that has advised and

advocated for a change to our electoral

system.

In 2002, an Electoral Task Team was

established by Cabinet that proposed an

electoral system based on constituencies,

rather than a system based on proportional

representation. The majority opinion

from the panel was routinely ignored in

favour of the minority position that left the

system largely untouched.

In 2009, an independent panel,

mandated to assess parliament,

recommended a review of the closed party-

list system, a recommendation

that was quietly ignored.

In 2017, a High-Level

Panel on the Assessment

of Key Legislation and the

Acceleration of Fundamental

Change was established

by parliament. It strongly

suggested that there should

be electoral reform to make

parliament more responsive to

citizens. That suggestion was

also ignored.

There has been a

constant across all these

discussions. The intent is to

change electoral legislation

to make our system of

governance more responsive

to citizens. But there has been

no desire to question whether

the system, as a whole, is

relevant anymore.

We have a

legislative history of disregarding all

recommendations for electoral reform.

This showcases the incongruence between

the populace’s supposed desire for

electoral reform and the definite desire

by political parties to maintain the status

quo. This is an incongruence that political

parties themselves cannot resolve because

there is an inherent conflict of interest

between parties and the issue of electoral

reform.

POLITICAL PARTIES

can’t be trusted with electoral reform

By Rekgotsofetse Chikane

The choice of this electoral system was made in 1994, to ensure

that all groupings within society would be able to find political

expression within our parliament. The belief was that our elected

officials would care about us. Over the last 28 years, it has become

evident that they don’t.

ANALYSIS