Why our political un-deployment rate is rising rapidly
TO go along with South Africa’s high unemployment rate, we now have a rapidly rising un-deployment rate as well.
For a while there we had two presidents. Now we have one province with two premiers and one major city with two mayors.
At the root of this rise in un-deployment is the “PR system”. Proportional representation puts the parties in the middle, in between the voters and the government.
The fact that the two mayors in Cape Town is a DA problem, and that the two premiers in North West is an ANC problem, shows that everyone is having difficulty with recalling “deployees”.
Last year we had a rogue president who was firing cabinet ministers to keep his cabal in power.
The idea of a secret vote stirred things up in parliament. The speaker dodged it at first until one party took it to the Constitutional Court.
All this delay and cost because removing deployees is difficult.
Now it is déjà vu all over again. One day, Premier Supra Mahumapelo is resigning. The next day he says he cannot be removed without just cause.
No court has convicted him. So he will go on a leave of absence while a puppet premier sits in his chair.
The saga of Patricia de Lille’s recall is even more confusing. Her party is going through all kinds of contortions to try to remove her.
All these are a function of the “two centres of power” problem. Namely, that the parties have too much power to deploy their cadres.
This power has been taken from the electorate – it is at the voter’s expense that the parties appoint “deployees”.
And it weakens the government. Because the structures that are constituted in the South African constitution are not functioning optimally – because parties get in their way.
The constitution never mentions parties. In short, it constitutes parliament, an executive branch, and the judiciary (as well as the Section 9 institutions).
There is no NEC (national executive committee) in the constitution. There is no NWC (national working committee) in the constitution. There is no “top six” in the constitution. These are (ANC) party structures, and that is why there are “two centres of power”.
It was really visible when the party elected Cyril Ramaphosa while Jacob Zuma was still state president.
At that level, you just can’t have two presidents in one country. In other countries, one becomes “president-elect” until he/she replaces the former president.
But in South Africa there was a prospect that Zuma wanted to trundle on until the 2019 elections – maybe 15 months after Ramaphosa became “president-elect”.
This shows again that the party and the government are not lining up well.
Now we see it in premiers who refuse to go.
I sympathise with Mahumapelo that leaving because his opposition in the province creates a “revolutionary council” would set a bad precedent. There is no such structure in either the state or the parties.
Revolutionary councils are, by definition, improvised. They are patched together to overthrow incumbents, and this only goes to show how badly the PR system is serving us. It sucks.
If a constitutional amendment on land reform is on the cards, then why not another constitutional amendment on voting as well?
Let voters send up MPs from “constituencies”. There are 225 local municipalities in the country and 400 seats in parliament.
So maybe each local municipality should send up two MPs?
The usual response is that this would be detrimental to the emergence of smaller parties, because they would get very few seats in parliament, because the big parties would dominate.
Well then, each local municipality could send up only one MP, and there could be some district seats too? The district seats would be fewer and could remain proportional.
However, MPs would know who they represent, and the way they vote in parliament could then loosen up. Not always towing the party lines, but based on conscience and the pulse of their constituency. They would represent their constituency, not just their party.
This would mean that no-confidence motions – not party recalls – would be the way to reverse a premier or president out of their position.
You lose the confidence of the broad spectrum of the National Assembly or a provincial legislature, and you are done. You are not recalled by your party. You are voted out.
Here is what the Slabbert Commission report says:
4.5.4.1 Participatory democracy: “The current system does not lend itself to participation by the electorate in the selection of candidates. That is an inherent weakness in all systems using closed candidate lists.”
4.5.4.2 Systematic synergy: “In view of the consequences at provincial level, it is significant that there are presently three different electoral systems for the three spheres of government.” Summary and conclusion: 4.5.5.1 “The nub of the majority view is that it is worthwhile to make legislative provision for an electoral system that can evolve towards a larger multi-membership constituency system with a compensatory national list. In order to facilitate accessibility and responsiveness between voter and representative, multi-member constituencies . . . are envisaged.”
4.5.5.4 “If nothing else, this proposal, if accepted, will keep an essential debate alive on the ways and means by which political accountability can be strengthened.”
God forbid that we have to set up any more revolutionary councils in our constitutional democracy to call leaders to give account!
But until leaders can be prevented from out-staying their welcome, the gap between voter and representative is just too wide.
This gap needs to be closed, and parties need to back off and let the constitutional structures take charge.
The constitution exists to run a whole country. Parties exist for their members, not for all citizens.
These two centres of power are clashing and that is why our un-deployment rate is rising so rapidly!
Parties have too much power to deploy their cadres. This power has been taken from the electorate