Senior African National Congress policymakers are warming to the idea of major electoral reforms, the Mail & Guardian has been told.
Proposals that the pure proportional representation (PR) system be replaced by one that mixes PR with direct constituency elections could be considered after the election.
The Congress of the People (Cope) has made such reform a centrepiece of its policy platform.
An independent panel, commissioned to assess Parliament, this week repeated long-standing criticisms that the party-list approach makes MPs accountable to party bosses rather than to voters.
”Urgent” electoral reform was needed to ensure that strong, independent MPs hold the executive to account, the panel suggested. Among the panellists was Max Sisulu, a senior member of the ANC’s national executive committee.
The report criticises the current constituency system, in which MPs are assigned a constituency and given funds to run an office and other programmes, saying it is unclear that genuine constituency work is differentiated from party political work.
One panellist, John Kane-Berman of the Institute of Race Relations, felt the report did not go far enough in this and other areas and refused to sign it.
Speaking to the M&G after the report’s handover, Sisulu said: ”There is definitely the political appetite for [electoral reform]. The debate is happening.”
Debate on the issue was less controversial in the ANC than on some of the panel’s other proposals, he said, particularly the suggestion that anyone convicted of fraud or corruption should be barred from becoming an MP.
Another NEC member confirmed this, saying discussion about incorporating constituency elections was already under way, but that the party wanted to be strategic about the timing of publicising any plans. Both men chuckled when asked whether such a move aimed to undercut Cope’s claim to be more committed to constitutional democracy than the ANC.
Another panellist was Frederick Van Zyl Slabbert, who penned the 2002 report that first advocated thorough-going electoral reform, detailing how constituency MPs could be supplemented by those from party lists to ensure both accountability and representation for smaller parties, which might be penalised by a ”first-past-the-post” system. Then president Thabo Mbeki ignored the report.
Asked whether the panel’s report could be similarly snubbed, chairperson and former ANC MP Pregs Govender said: ”The insurance is that we are presenting here publicly — We hope the executive will take note of it, particularly as it was commissioned by Baleka Mbete, now the deputy president.”
”We don’t feel it’s a report that can be ignored,” Sisulu said.
It will not, however, be considered by Parliament. National Assembly speaker Gwen Mahlangu-Nkabinde said it would form part of a legacy report to the presiding officers of the post-election Parliament.