Sweeping electoral reform on the table
• Committee is considering a hybrid system like that used for local government, says Moosa
A ministerial advisory committee on the electoral system, which is considering options for reform, has included a mixed constituency and list system, which, if accepted, would transform SA’s electoral politics.
The committee, headed by former cabinet minister and ANC veteran Valli Moosa, was appointed in February by the home affairs minister, Aaron Motsoaledi. A ruling by the Constitutional Court in June 2020 found that the Electoral Act was unconstitutional because it did not allow for individuals to stand for national and provincial elections. The rights to vote and stand for election are included in the bill of rights.
Under the current electoral system, which has been in place since 1994, only political parties can contest national and provincial elections. Party lists for the National Assembly are composed of a national list, and provincial lists for each province, with MPs drawn from the lists on a proportional basis.
Parliament has until June 2022 to amend the act.
However, the terms of reference given to the advisory committee are broader than simply to facilitate compliance with the judgment.
Motsoaledi also instructed the committee to “engage with a wide range of stakeholders ... on their views on how the electoral system should be changed” and to “facilitate the development of a new electoral system for the next phase of SA’s democracy”.
In an interview on Thursday, Moosa said three options were under consideration: the first was to make the bare minimum of change sufficient to comply with the constitution; the second was to retain national lists but to modify provincial lists by splitting them into multi constituency units; and the third was a single constituency system accompanied by a national list, which would be used to balance out proportionality.
Moosa said that the committee had not yet made up its mind but was in the process of finalising its recommendation, in order to give parliament at least 12 months to process legislation.
“One of the things we are
hearing very strongly from young people is a call for direct representation and accountability. But the constitution also requires the outcome of elections to be proportional, which is a very important principle for inclusivity. A hybrid system with a constituency system of a certain number of MPs and a national list to allow for overall proportionality would do both,” he said.
This proposal is similar to the way local government works with a combined ward and proportional representation system.
The electoral system has been widely criticised for undermining accountability to voters as MPs elected through lists are accountable to party bosses. Among the key failures during the state capture era was the failure of parliamentary oversight as MPs closed party ranks, protected the executive and turned a blind eye to countless allegations of corruption.
The design of the electoral system at the time of the 1994 election was assumed to be temporary and was not intended to regulate elections beyond 1999. In 2003 an electoral task team, headed by former PFP leader Frederik Van Zyl Slabbert, was appointed to look into the next phase of electoral politics.
The committee was divided, with its majority report recommending a hybrid list and multi-constituency system. Its findings were never adopted by the government.
The ministerial advisory committee includes two former members of the Van Zyl Slabbert panel: Pansy Tlakula, the former head of the Electoral Commission of SA (IEC), and Norman du Plessis, a former IEC official. Other members include senior counsel Vincent Maleka; former head of the demarcation board Michael Sutcliffe; University of Pretoria political scientist Sithembile Mbete; Wits political scientist Daryl Glaser; and IEC commissioner Nomsa Masuku.
In November 2017 the highlevel panel to assess the extent to which legislation has achieved the vision set out in the constitution, chaired by former president Kgalema Motlanthe, also identified the party-list system as detrimental to accountability.
It recommended that parliament “amend the Electoral Act to provide for an electoral system that makes MPs accountable to defined constituencies on a proportional representation and constituency system for national elections”.