Electoral Systems
‘…..when people can freely ditch their rulers, it
gives those rulers an incentive to govern a bit better.’
Robert Guest – The Shackled Continent Macmillan 2004
at 50.
‘The best argument against democracy is a five minute
conversation with the average voter.’
Winston Spencer Churchill
‘Democracy is the worst form of government except for
all those others that have been tried.’
Winston Spencer Churchill
‘I am as much for government by consent as any man,
but where shall we find consent?’
Oliver Cromwell
‘When annual elections end, there slavery begins’.
John Adams
‘AND because Elections ought to be free, the King commandeth upon great
Forfeiture, that no Man by Force of Arms, nor by Malice, or menacing,
shall disturb any to make free Election’.
- The (first) Statute of Westminster – 1275 (King
Edward I)
1)
Introduction
‘Democracy’
means ‘rule of or by the people.’ For democracy to exist, a large
proportion of the general populace as opposed to a select aristocratic class,
or an autocratic ruler, must decide on the laws by which they will be governed.
This legislative function can be direct, in that those with the right to vote
(the electorate)[1]
can vote directly for or against the passing of legislation. The first
democracies were small city-states and due to the small numbers of voters, were
able to operate in this fashion.
Usually,
however, the legislative function operates indirectly as modern states are too
large to have each voter voting for or against legislation directly. This means
that in modern states, the electorate is represented by representatives elected
to a body comprising some sort of parliament, which is responsible for passing
legislation on the electorate’s behalf.[2] The electorate by means of an electoral
system chooses these representatives. This is what is meant by ‘representative’
as opposed to ‘direct’ democracy.
‘Closely allied with party
as a potent primary force in the development and modification of a constitution
is the electoral system. ..…The system
of election adopted in a country and the distribution of seats may determine
the party composition of the legislature and the strength or weakness of the
executive.’
-
K. C. Wheare – Modern Constitutions
The above
statement briefly describes an interesting phenomenon caused by electoral
systems. Obviously, the prime function of the electoral system is to ensure
that the will of the people is expressed by making certain that the
representatives that the people have chosen to represent them, will obtain
seats in the legislature. However, the
electoral system chosen by a country also has the potential to effect:-
a) the composition
of the legislature;
b) the influence
of political parties;
c) the strength
and influence of the party leadership;
d) the power of
the executive and even the fashion in which the legislature operates, in a
manner not necessarily intended by the drafters of a constitution.
All electoral
systems have their advantages and disadvantages, and many attempts have been
made to devise the perfect system which eliminates the unintended consequences,
although none of these have been entirely successful. Briefly, however, different electoral systems
produce different results.
2)
Unintended consequences
Two factors come
into play to create the unintended consequences referred to above;- the electoral system and party based
politics. These two factors working
together create an indirect but potent effect on a state’s constitution and
government.
a)
Composition of Parliament
With regard to
party political representation in a legislature, one can take the same group of
voters, and have them vote for exactly the same parties, but achieve an
entirely different majority in the legislature, depending on the electoral
system used.
The form of
electoral system adopted by a country therefore has a profound effect on the
distribution of seats and the composition of the legislature with regard to
party strength.
b)
Strength of the Executive
This in turn can
determine the strength or the weakness of the executive, as the more support
its party enjoys in parliament relative to other parties, the freer the
executive will be to pursue its own policies.
c)
Party leadership authority
The electoral system
can also affect the amount of influence and authority the party leadership
enjoys in relation to the individual MP’s who belong to it. The party leadership will be strengthened or
weakened depending on the extent to which it can exert pressure on its own
members in a legislature to toe the party line.
Certain electoral systems facilitate this kind of party influence more
than others.
d)
Executive influence over its party members in the legislature
Since the party
leadership of the ruling party usually comprises the executive, this factor
also affects the strength of the executive in a different manner from that
indicated in b) above. Certain electoral
systems will enable the executive to extract more loyalty and support from its
members in the legislature than will others, leading to the domination of the
executive over the legislature. This may
lead to the Legislature not being able to operate in the manner envisaged in a
constitution, particularly should the legislature have been given an oversight
role.
e)
The number of parties in the legislature
Certain
electoral systems, such as proportional representation, have a tendency to
allow a large number of smaller parties in Parliament, whereas others,
particularly plurality systems tend to eliminate small parties and allow a
smaller number of large parties.
Furthermore, there is a tenancy for systems with a large number of
smaller parties represented in a parliament to have weaker executives. The largest
party in this kind of system frequently lacks sufficient numbers to form an
overall majority, and it therefore needs to form coalitions with other parties
in order to remain in power. This inevitably means that it is necessary for the
party with the strongest support to compromise. Whilst a certain amount of
compromise is good in theory, it can paralyse the executive and prevent the
passing of necessary but unpopular laws. This occurred in France under the
Third and Fourth Republics, even though the French Constitution provided for
extensive executive powers. It also happens in Israel from time to time.
3)
Different Electoral Systems
As intimated
above, electoral systems are not all the same, and each system produces
different results. What follows here is by no means an exhaustive list, but
merely an introduction to two of the more popular types of system, which have
been selected as they have both played a role in the South African
constitutional narrative. There are also
several sub-categories of these two systems which will not be mentioned here.
a)
Constituency Based Systems - (also
‘first past the post’ or ‘plurality’ systems)
The constituency
based electoral system is used in Britain, where it originated, as well as the
USA and much of the Commonwealth. It was also the system used in South Africa
prior to 1994.
·
Based on constituencies
With a
constituency based system, the entire country is divided into districts,
theoretically with a roughly equal number of voters in each. Each of these districts is called a
constituency, and is responsible for electing an MP[3] to
represent it in Parliament.
·
Each constituency elects a representative
This means that
each prospective MP stands for election to a particular seat in the particular
area comprising the constituency, and the MP canvasses support in that area,
trying to persuade the voters in that area to elect him. Because the voters in a constituency elect a
MP to represent them as a specific community in Parliament, the seat[4] occupied
by the elected representative is identified with reference to the constituency,
rather than by reference to the MP as an individual. In fact, when an MP is referred to in the
British Parliament he is referred to as the ‘honourable member’ for whichever
constituency he represents, rather than by his name.
·
The system does not make allowance for parties per se
The constituency
system was in place in England by the end of the 13th century, long
before the emergence of political parties at the end of the 17th
century. Therefore, the constituency
system does not make allowance for political parties per se, although the party system has been superimposed on it. This means that although these days voters
usually vote for a party in practice, in
theory they are voting for a particular individual to represent them. As indicated above, the MP appears in
Parliament as ‘the honorable member for
Lambert North,’ or whatever constituency he happens to represent.
Because he has
been elected as an individual first, and only coincidentally (at least in
theory) as a member of a party, it is possible for a member of parliament to
justify ‘crossing the floor’ and changing parties as he can claim to have the
voters’ support for him as a person. This indeed can be the case occasionally, and
it is not unusual to have an ‘independent’ with no party affiliations
whatsoever winning a seat if he is popular enough with the local voters.
Strengths
·
The representative is directly responsible to the people who elected
him
The main benefit
of the constituency system is that the member is directly responsible to the
people that elected him. There are
usually rules providing that the member must have a dwelling place in the
constituency and there is pressure on him to represent the interests of the
people living in the constituency. The member might therefore press for the
protection of his constituency at a national level, be it to improve services
and infrastructure, the protection of an industry that gives employment in the
area, or support for moral issues that his constituents support, such as
anti-abortion or anti-drug abuse legislation.
The member needs
to spend time in his constituency, hence the longer annual Parliamentary recess
in Britain compared with South Africa. This keeps national government closer to
the electorate and alive to the issues that they believe to be important.
·
Constituency pressure acts as a counterweight to the power of the
party and the party leaders
A further
benefit is that constituency pressure acts as a counterweight to the power of
the party and the party leaders. An MP
needs always to be looking over his shoulder at his constituency and what they
are thinking. If the party leadership
wish to follow an unpopular course of action or are involved in a political
scandal, the ordinary MP needs to think twice before following their lead.[5] Indeed,
if he is personally involved in political scandal, the party is unable to
protect him from the electorate, unless his constituency approves of his
actions. On the other hand, if his
political party angers the electorate, floor-crossing might sometimes occur in
order to protect the MP’s relationship with the electorate in his constituency,
rather than because of attractive career offers from another party.[6]
·
Favours the growth of big parties
Finally, the
constituency system tends to favour the growth of big parties as small parties,
even if they have a fair amount of support spread thinly nationally, are
unlikely to have enough support within any single constituency to win any
seats. This has a tendency to encourage the emergence of ‘two party’ systems,
that is; systems where two major parties predominate. This is pre-eminently the
case in the USA with the Republican and Democratic Parties and has tended also
to be the case in Britain with the Labour and Conservative Parties gaining the
majority of seats between them, and the Liberal Democrats tending to come a
poor third.[7]
The advantage is
that the party with the most votes does not have to cobble together a coalition
with smaller parties in order to form a government. It therefore has a clear
mandate to pursue the policies that it stood for in the election. Coalitions
are inherently unstable and involve compromise, which means that the government
lacks a clear mandate from the electorate. The executive paralysis typified by
the Third and Fourth French Republics is therefore avoided. There is a negative side to this phenomenon,
however, which is mentioned below. Confuse
Weaknesses
·
Distortion of parliamentary party support
As noted above,
the constituency system was never designed to take the existence of political
parties into account. It is geographically based and
is designed to provide for the representation of the people living in each
district in the country. As a result, there is no direct correspondence between
the support each political party enjoys from all the voters nationally, and the
number of seats it holds in Parliament. Therefore it does not reflect accurately
the support that each party enjoys among the voters nationally. (The record of
support that each political party has received from voters at an election
overall nationally, is known as the ‘popular vote’.) At best, it can reflect
the support a party may enjoy within each individual community comprising a constituency,
in which the party has endorsed a candidate.
The major
weakness of the constituency system stems from this. Because the system is
based on geography rather than party support, it tends to distort the extent of
support that each party has from the electorate as a whole, in that it allows
parties with fewer voters in total to have more seats in Parliament and vice
versa. This means that the number of
seats held by each party does not reflect the proportion of the ‘popular vote’
held by each party. [8]
The distortion
happens at two levels: –
a)
Nationally - The individual
representing the party that has the most votes in a given constituency wins the
seat. Any votes cast for any candidate
other than the winner and the party he might represent in the constituency are
wasted, in that they fall away. This is why the system is sometimes called the
‘first past the post’ system or ‘winner takes all’ system. – ‘Coming second’
counts for nothing. Because the losing votes in each constituency are
effectively discarded, they count for nothing, whereas they still feature in
the popular vote, which has no function in constituency electoral systems.
b)
Within each constituency – The
distortion can be even worse where there are more than two competing candidates
in a particular constituency. This causes a multiple split in the voting, with
the winner achieving the support of less than 51% of the total number of
voters, but winning the seat, nonetheless. This means that the person winning
the seat in a particular constituency might have the more votes than any other
candidate, but not the majority of votes in the constituency overall. This
exacerbates (increases/makes worse)
the distortion between the seats obtained by parties in Parliament and each party’s
share of the popular vote.
Modifications of the plurality
system such as those used in Australia where voters have an ‘alternative vote
they can use for a ‘second choice’ candidate help to ameliorate (improve) the
latter distortion within the constituencies internally. However, these
modifications do little to improve the distortion at a national level, caused
by losing votes falling away.
Some modifications to the
system, which allow for second choices, ameliorate the problem of candidates
winning with the largest minority in the case of multiple candidates within
single constituencies. These modifications still fail to correct the overall
problem, however, namely that the system is geographically rather than party
based.
The individual who is successful
in winning the seat (particularly if there are a number of candidates standing
for smaller parties, each of whom receive a proportion of the votes,) may not
win a majority and only receive a relatively small proportion of the overall
votes in the constituency, although more than anyone else. (See the attached diagram for an example of this). Should this
process be repeated in all the constituencies around the country, the total
number of votes gained by the various parties will rarely correspond closely to
the total number of seats won by each party in the legislature.
This phenomenon
is graphically illustrated by the victory of the National Party in South Africa
in 1948. The National Party which won the election by virtue of winning the
majority of the seats in the House of Assembly only won 39.4% of the popular
vote, whereas the United Party won 53.3% of the popular vote, but won fewer
seats in the house. Had a party list system been in place at the time, the
National Party would not have come to power and the worst excesses of apartheid
might have been avoided.
·
Delimitation difficulties
The distortion
that occurs between seats in the parliament and the popular vote is encouraged
by delimitation issues.
Impossibility
of Precision
In theory, each
constituency ought to contain the same number of voters. This is obviously
almost impossible to achieve with complete precision, and would be impossible
even if the conditions in each constituency were exactly the same.
Rural Overrepresentation
The conditions
are not the same, however, and there is an enormous difference between the
circumstances of urban and rural constituencies in particular. There is a
natural tendency for rural areas to be overrepresented in comparison to urban
areas. The sheer number of voters packed
into urban areas in comparison with thinly populated rural areas leads to rural
areas being overrepresented, despite attempts to make the numbers roughly equal
by having urban constituencies cover a smaller physical area. This is because there is a limit to the size
of the territory a rural constituency can include without becoming
impracticable.
A further reason
for overrepresentation is that rural voters tend to move less often than urban
voters who sometimes fail to re-register, having moved to a new place of
residence.
Gerrymandering
In addition to
this, support for parties is seldom uniform across a country, and parties will
enjoy more support in some areas than in others, due often to factors such as
social class and employment patterns, or in countries such as South Africa,
race. Political parties are often supported along class, employment or racial
lines. Governments are therefore tempted to manipulate the delimitation of
constituency boundaries to favour governing party electoral support. This means
that they arrange to have constituency boundaries drawn so as to allow less
wastage in respect of areas where they are strongly supported, and dilution of
opposition support in areas where the opposition is strong. This practice is called ‘gerrymandering’.
The boundaries
of constituencies are drawn by delimitation commissions, and the extent of
influence that the government has on these commissions and the extent to which
they are independent will greatly affect the incidence of gerrymandering.
·
Discouragement of small parties
Finally, the
constituency system tends to discourage the growth of small parties. Small
parties favouring particular interest groups (such as ‘green’ parties with an
environmental agenda) which have thinly spread but significant national support
rarely can garner enough support in particular areas to win
constituencies. This has positive
benefits, as mentioned above, but it also has a negative aspect. The issues small parties support do not
necessarily receive attention in the parliament, and the need for larger
parties to form coalitions is not always a bad thing as it does encourage
compromise.
b)
Party List – (proportional representation)
The party list
or proportional representation system is designed to avoid the distortions that
occur with the first past the post system. It operates from a premise that
fully recognises the existence of parties.
With this
system:-
i)
There are no
constituencies.
ii)
As there are no
constituencies there are no constituency candidates and a list of potential MPs
is drafted by each party instead.
iii) The electorate vote only for the party.
After the
election the total number of votes is added up and the seats in parliament are
allocated to each party in proportion to the number of votes out of the total
that each party has received.
The MPs in
parliament do not represent a particular constituency, but instead represent a
particular party exclusively. If there
is floor crossing on the part of MPs, then the proportional number of MPs each
party has in Parliament no longer reflects the proportional electoral support
that each party enjoys.
Strengths
·
Accurate reflection of party support
This is a system
that is specifically designed to deal with the reality of the existence of
political parties. Its major strength is that the electorate’s wishes are
accurately reflected in the number of seats allocated to each party in the
parliament.
·
Allows for the presence of small parties
It also allows
for the presence of small parties in the parliament. Those small parties that
manage to garner sufficient support nationally will gain one or more seats,
even if their support is too thinly spread across the country for them to ever
win any constituency based seats.[9]
Quite often with
plurality (constituency) systems, even large parties will not bother to put up
a candidate in a constituency where they are unlikely to win, which means that
supporters of that party within these constituencies are unable to vote for a
candidate who stands for the party of their choice. With the party list system, however, no votes
are ever wasted, and voters can feel free to vote for whichever party they
wish, no matter where they reside. The
amount of support a party might have locally is irrelevant as votes are only
used in a national pool.
Weaknesses
·
MP’s become subservient to the wishes of the party elite
The main
weakness of the Party List System is that the MP’s are completely dependent on
their parties and therefore become subservient to the wishes of the party
elite. This means there is little
independence of thought.
Parties have
immense power to determine which candidates get elected. The party leadership drafts the party list
and MP’s are appointed rather than elected to seats from the party
lists. Candidates and current MP’s are
both constrained to conform to every aspect of the party policy and the wishes
of the leaders in the party hierarchy in order to secure a place on the party
list. Since MP’s are appointed to seats
in accordance with membership of a party and inclusion on a party list,
dismissal from a political party also means automatically losing one’s
parliamentary seat.
·
Voters have no contact with or influence over their representatives
Voters have no
direct influence over who the candidates are and unpopular candidates who
nonetheless enjoy support with the party hierarchy can be elected. There is little opportunity for individual
MPs to promote personal issues and no regard need be taken of issues that are
important to communities at a constituency level.
This weakness is
exacerbated by the growing strength of the executive in government
internationally, irrespective of electoral system, given that the executive is
usually comprised of the party elite. The strengthening of the executive at the
expense of the legislature becomes more pronounced with a party list electoral
system.
·
The existence of a large number of parties
Because the PR
system allows a large number of parties to have seats in the legislature, there
is the potential that no single party will have enough strength to form a
government, and coalitions will have to be formed. The disadvantages that may
flow from this have been listed above.
4)
The growing strength of political parties and the executive
It is worth
noting that political parties have grown in strength over during the course of
the 20th century. One of the
causes has been the increasingly expensive modes of electioneering that have
come into use, including both print and broadcast media advertising, together
with posters and the more traditional public addresses, which also require the
hiring of facilities. The growing need
for campaign funding affects all types of electoral systems and even in
constituency based systems, an independent candidate without the support of a
political party needs to have considerable funding from somewhere in order to
have any hope of success.
This has made
members of the legislature more dependent on political parties than might have
been the case a century ago. The
dependence on political parties makes members dependent on the party leadership
which is often, in the case of the governing party, is to be found occupying
positions in the cabinet. The executive
therefore has more influence over its members in the legislature, than was
previously the case. In the United
States where there is stronger separation of powers, this trend is not quite so
pronounced. Ironically, however, it is
in Westminster style systems where the legislature is given an oversight role
in respect of the executive, that party leadership will more likely to be found
in the cabinet.
The result is
that the executive has grown in influence and will often be in a position to
manipulate the legislature. The PR
system exacerbates this phenomenon.
5)
South Africa
The party list
system of proportional representation is the system currently used in South
Africa, and is provided for in terms of s 46(1)(d) of the Constitution. In the case of South Africa there has been no
difficulty for the ANC to form a government, however, as it currently enjoys an
enormous majority in Parliament, almost unhealthily so. Therefore the frequent need for governments
in countries utilising a party list system to obtain the support of other
parties in order to form a government has not been evident in South Africa,[10]
although there has been a proliferation of smaller parties in Parliament that
would generally be excluded in the context of a constituency system.
The unusual
strength of the governing party in the South African context, notwithstanding
the party list system, has much to do with its credentials as a liberation
movement and the particular history and sociology of South Africa.
On the other
hand, the lack of constituency accountability is a real problem and the power
of the party elite is evident in all the political parties, leading to little
independence of action on the part of individual MP’s. Some parties have assigned their MP’s
artificial ‘constituencies’ whose needs they are supposed to represent and this
appears to be the policy of Parliament as a whole now[11]. The difficulty, however, is that these MP’s
lack sufficient time away from Parliament to perform this function properly,
and may not necessarily have any real connection to the ‘constituency’. In any event, there can be little incentive
to represent the wishes of the constituency when it runs contrary to that of
the party leadership, or even spend time trying to do constituency work.[12]
6)
German Hybrid
Whilst it is
almost impossible to devise an electoral system which avoids all the
disadvantages of the two systems discussed, without also being impossibly
complex, Germany has found a relatively simple compromise, merely by combining
both systems and using them simultaneously.
‘Germany has a unique system of “topping up representation,” for half
the Bundestag[13]
is elected by proportional representation and half by single member
districts.
Each voter has two
votes – the first is used to elect a constituency representative by the simple
majority method and the second vote is given to a party list. To qualify for the distribution of
proportional representation seats, a party must win at least five per cent of
the total national vote or obtain victory in at least three constituencies
(Wahlkreis). The barrier was set at this height to prevent the representation
of extremist parties and the proliferation of small parties, both considered
problems fostered by the Weimer electoral system.
The distribution of
seats at the constituency level is usually disproportional as it is done by
simple plurality. For example, in 1972
the Social Democratic Party (SPD) won 46 per cent of the vote and 61 per cent
of the constituency seats whereas in 1976 when its vote dropped by 3 per cent,
its share of constituency seats dropped almost 15 per cent.
However, the award
of half the seats by proportional representation compensates effectively for
the disproportionality of the plurality distribution. Germany uses a strict party list system of PR
but voters can express a preference for individual candidates at the
constituency level.
The 1983 Federal
election results reveal that that percentage of seats obtained by each party
corresponds very closely to the percentage of list votes obtained. Furthermore the Green Party for the first
time obtained seats in the Bundestag by winning over 5 per cent of list
votes. The Green Party, like the Free
Democrats, obtained all their seats from party lists.’[14]
This system has
been adopted in South Africa in respect of municipal elections.
Although the
German system offers great potential improvements to the current South African
electoral system, it remains a compromise with the defects inherent in each
system still being present to some extent. For instance, there are still
distortions between each party’s share of the popular vote and the number of
constituency based seats allocated to each party. This distortion can only be
partially corrected by the accuracy achieved from half the seats being
allocated on the basis of proportional representation and party lists. In other
words the distortion is reduced, not eliminated.
At the same time
the fact that half the seats are allocated proportionately and filled by means
of party lists means that half the MP’s have no constituency links. This means
that half the MP’s are subject to the normal problems with subservience to the
party leadership, which the use of proportional representation entails.
7)
The Reynolds System
The Reynolds System
is another system which may be very useful potentially, but it was rejected
during the negotiation period. It involved
a 400 member parliament, 300 of whom would be elected within 37 multimember
constituencies. The remaining 100 members would be appointed via party lists.
In this case, however, the appointment of the party list members would be
intended only to correct any distortions which may have occurred between the
popular vote and the number of constituency seats won by each party.
This has the advantage
of ensuring that most of the MP’s would represent constituencies, whilst there
would be a completely accurate relationship between the popular party support
and the number of seats held by each party in the house.
The multimember
constituencies are arguably a weakness, however. They clearly comprise an
attempt to ensure that second and third choice candidates in constituencies
also get parliamentary seats, but this is arguably an unnecessary complication,
given that overall party support at national level would be accurately
reflected in seat allocation in any event. Furthermore, a greater number of
constituencies, that is 300 instead of 37, would probably be better than just
37. The greater number would enable constituency boundaries to be smaller and
each constituency MP to be responsible for a more concentrated and defined
area, without any ‘passing of the buck’ to other MP’s sharing the seat.
Ineffectual Elections
Although the
election process is the essential to democracy, elections do not necessarily
ensure that democracy occurs. In fact it is a trait of modern dictatorships
that they legitimise themselves by holding elections.
‘During the 1990’s, virtually every African State held elections of
some sort. If one ignores countries that only became independent after 1990,
such as Eritrea and (de facto) Somaliland, the sole laggard was the inaptly
named Democratic Republic of Congo. All this is admirable, but there is more to
liberty than voting. ….With few exceptions, African ruling parties still use
the apparatus of state to keep themselves in power. Public radio sprouts their
propaganda, public money pays for bags of grain to hand out on polling day, and
the police arrest their opponents for jaywalking. Few African governments are
peacefully voted out of office.’
Robert Guest – The Shackled Continent Macmillan 2004 at 48-49.
There are many
ways of rigging an election.
1. One method is to interfere with
constituency boundaries in those systems where constituency systems exist. This
ensures that the governing party wastes as few votes as possible in a first
past the post system, or alternatively, constituencies can be demarcated so as
to allow for fewer voters in safe government seats, whilst opposition areas are
larger, containing more voters. An indirect manipulation happened in South
Africa during the pre- 1994 era, where rural government supporting
constituencies had fewer voters than urban opposition supporting
constituencies, resulting in over-representation in Parliament.
2. Another method is to interfere with the
voters’ roll. This can be done most crudely by preventing opposition voters
from registering, either by threatening them or by confiscating their identity
documents.
One can also
interfere with the roll by failing to remove the names of dead people from the
roll, or add them, and then manufacture votes for them at the election.
Election fraud on this scale requires the connivance of election officials, of
course.
3.
Another fairly crude method is
the interference with ballot boxes. There are various methods of doing this,
but one way is to manufacture extra votes and add them to a ballot box, in the
hope that no reconciliation will take place, which also requires the connivance
of the election officials.
4.
A fourth method is threat and
intimidation. This varies in degrees from the most blatant to the more subtle.
The most blatant involves the express threats to or the beating of rival party
supporters, forcing them either to refrain from voting or to vote for the party
of the persons who have administered the threat. Another variation is to control and withhold
vital services, such as food supplies.
‘As long as you value the government of the day, you will not starve,
but we do not want people who vote for the colonists and then come to us when
they want food. You cannot vote for the MDC and expect ZANU-PF to help
you…..You have to vote for ZANU-PF candidates……before government starts
rethinking your entitlement to this food aid.’
Abednico Ncube;- Zimbabwean deputy foreign minister
addressing villagers in Matabeleland. – International Crisis Group – Zimbabwe:
The Politics of National Liberation and International Division –
Harare/Brussels 2002 at 4.
(www.crisisweb.org)
[1] The ‘electorate’
consists of those persons who have the ‘franchise,’ and are entitled to vote. A
word with a similar meaning is ‘suffrage,’ often used to describe the extent or
nature of the franchise, eg; - ‘universal adult suffrage.’
[2] Direct voting on a particular issue by the
electorate itself may still occur by way of a plebiscite or referendum.
[3] ‘MP’ is an acronym for ‘Member of
Parliament’ and appears after the name of a member of the legislature in states
that use ‘Parliament’ as the title of their legislatures.
[4] That is ‘seat’ in
the figurative sense of a parliamentary ‘post’, rather than the actual chair on
which the MP would be seated.
[5] Please note that this does not mean that ‘in
the constituency based system the electorate does not vote for parties’ or that
the party has no influence, as some students have claimed in exams. It merely
means that party influence is less pervasive than it is in party list
proportional representation systems. Parties have a significant and growing
role in modern constituency based systems, however.
[6] Please note that
floor crossing is more justifiable,
not necessarily more prevalent in
constituency based systems, as students sometimes claim.
[7] Due to the party with the largest support not being
able to obtain a clear majority, the 2010 British election has resulted in the
first coalition government in Britain since 1945. The unusual nature of this
occurrence can only be appreciated when one considers that the coalition which
existed from 1940 to 1945 was a wartime coalition put in place to deal with a
special situation, and the Conservative party, which was the strongest party at
the time, did have a clear majority and was able to form a government on its
own.
[8] The total number of votes cast in an election
nationally, without reference to constituency divisions is known as the
‘popular vote’.
[9] The South African National Assembly has 400 seats,
therefore with a PR electoral system a party would require at least 0.25% of
the popular vote in order to win a single seat.
[10] An interesting fact which should not be
ignored, however, is that the ANC is currently involved in a type of
extra-parliamentary ‘coalition’ with the Communist Party and COSATU, the trade
union organisation. Its alliance partners use the ANC as their political
expression in Parliament, and do not have their own representation there. COSATU could form its own ‘labour’ party or give
political support to the Communist Party if they ever became dissatisfied with
the present alliance, whilst the Communist party could electioneer on its own
ticket. Whilst neither of these
scenarios are likely in the short or even medium term, the alliance appears to
be undergoing serious strains at present.
[11] For instance, funding has been made available for
‘constituency work’ and there is discussion of such constituency work both in
Parliament and on the Parliamentary website. It is difficult to imagine any
parties other than the ANC and DA being able to even consider such work,
however, given that none of the other parties have more than a handful of seats
in Parliament and would be quite unable to be active in more than a handful of
‘constituencies’.
[12] ‘The panel noted how tenuous the
links are between Parliament and the electorate. It noted various initiatives
to strengthen these, including establishing “parliamentary democracy offices”
and assigning or deploying MPs to “constituency offices”. But it is absurd to
talk of assigning MPs to constituencies that should have elected them in the
first place. Suzman was not deployed to Houghton. Houghton sent her to
Parliament.’
John Kane-Berman - Voice of the people — or is it
the party? - Business
Day - Posted to the web on: 05 February 2009
[13] The ‘Bundestag’ is the German legislature.
[14] Extract from the unpublished Masters
research paper of Noreen Nobin.
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