Marion Edmunds
It is likely that the tradition of the makhulu-baas will continue in South African party politics. This week the African National Congress and the National Party shelved constituency-based politics once and for all, settling for a system of proportional representation.
This system makes the personality and charisma of the leader of a political party the drawcard for votes, rather than the endeavours of individual politicians working within their communities.
Professor Nico Steytler, head of the University of the Western Cape’s Community Law Centre, has spent the week trying to scrape together a lobby of NGOs to fight against proportional representation and party lists. He believes the public has been denied the opportunity to comment on the electoral system, because it was not described in the draft circulated for public comment.
NP negotiator Roelf Meyer said: “The PR system gives the best expression to the preference of voters, but at the same time we are also of the view that the elected representatives should have a direct link with their people. We believe the arrangement whereby parties allocate politicians to geographical constituencies after elections takes care of concerns about accountability.”
This view is further supported by the Freedom
Front, which says party lists are the only way to go in an African democracy.
The anti-defection clause is believed by critics to have had the impact of stifling internal party-political debate, because MPs know that if they disagree too strongly with their “party bosses”, they will be expelled from the party and will not be able to cross the floor to other parties.
The DP has long opposed this clause, but has failed to convince the ANC to remove it from the interim Constitution. In the negotiations on the final Constitution, the clause was left blank, some believing that it would slip right out of the debate. However, it was remembered by the ANC late Wednesday this week, and put back onto the table by Deputy President Thabo Mbeki’s adviser, Essop Pahad.
There is legal opinion that an anti-defection clause is in fact unconstitutional, because it inhibits a politician’s right to freedom of association and freedom of expression.
Further, the ANC has announced that it intends to renegotiate the anti-defection clause which prevents politicians from crossing the floor. Although the NP is opposed to this clause, it is not something, says NP secretary general Roelf Meyer, for which his party is prepared to go to war. This means the NP is unlikely to fight the anti-defection clause with much energy.