Countries That Hold Elections South Africa

¶ … South Africa: Electoral and Institutional Arrangements, Party Competition, and Checks and Balances in Government

South Africa's government is a constitutional democracy based upon a system of proportional representation. In other words, its national legislature is a parliament, with two houses, the National Assembly and the National Council of Provinces (NCOP). The parliament called the National Assembly awards seats to each political party based upon that party's proportionate support in the national election. Elections for the National Assembly are held every five years. The second general democratic post-apartheid election in 1999 in yielded a majority for the African National Congress (ANC) Party, the party famously lead by the imprisoned Nelson Mandela during the years of apartheid that disenfranchised most of South Africa's majority black population ("Government in South Africa," SouthAfricainfo, 2008).

In addition to the ANC, South Africa has sixteen registered political parties under the Independent Electoral Commission, spanning a variety of political points-of-view with a variety of regional affiliations (South Africa's Political Parties, SouthAfricainfo, 2008). This diversity of parties is fairly typical of other nations with proportionate representation systems, such as Israel and Germany, to name just two examples. The views of South Africa's parties are particularly diverse. For example, there is the relatively moderate Democratic Alliance, a more free-market oriented party in contrast to the more socialistic ANC. The most vocal rival to the ANC is the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC), a radical breakaway party from the more mainstream ANC that began in 1959. "Influenced by the Africanist ideals of Kwame Nkrumah, it promotes the return of the land to the indigenous people" of South Africa (South Africa's Political Parties, SouthAfricainfo, 2008).

Examples of small parties representing relatively minor minority interests are that of the African Christian Party, which was formed with the intent of representing all African Christians. It has two seats in the parliament like the Minority Party, which represents South Africa's Indian population "Apart from its two seats in the National Assembly, the party is also represented in the Durban metropolitan council" (South Africa's Political Parties, SouthAfricainfo, 2008). Because South Africa is so racially and tribally diverse, a proportionate representation system was deemed the most suitable way to articulate all of its varied political interests and affiliations.

The South African President is elected by the National Assembly from among its members and like the British Prime Minister thus is expected to come from the majority party, in this case the ANC. The president functions as the chief executive and head of state. He leads a cabinet which he appoints of a deputy president and twenty-five ministers overseeing different functions of the government. These cabinet members may introduce legislation into the General Assembly as may the deputy minister, or a member of a National Assembly committee ("Government in South Africa," SouthAfricainfo, 2008)..

The president is limited to serving two five-year terms in office. Constitutionally, he is given the power to appoint the deputy president and ministers, assign them "their powers and functions, and may dismiss them" but all but two ministers must be selected from among the members of the National Assembly, ensuring that the cabinet members will be representative of popular interests and approved of by the public ("Government in South Africa," SouthAfricainfo, 2008).

Historically, one of the difficulties in governing South Africa has been the warring interest of various provinces. To give voice to these diverse interests in a peaceful and democratic manner, in additional to the National Assembly, South Africa also possesses as part of its legislative branch the National Council of Provinces (NCOP), designed to facilitate co-operative governance and participatory democracy and to balance the influence of the proportionately representative parliament. Each the nine provinces sends ten representatives, six permanent members, and four special delegates, totaling fifty-four permanent members and thirty-six special delegates to the NCOP. Each province's delegation must include representation of minority parties. Local (municipal) government representatives may participate in the NCOP as non-voting members ("Government in South Africa," SouthAfricainfo, 2008).