The National Council of Provinces
Unlike the National Assembly, the members of the NCOP are not elected directly by voters. Voters in each province elect the provincial legislatures, and the legislatures elect the permanent members of the NCOP. Hold a mock mini-election for the provincial legislature of your province in the class, asking learners to draw a mock provincial ballot paper which contains five imaginary political parties.
Each learner has one vote and may vote for only one party by marking the relevant block with ‘X’. Explain that any other marks on the paper or more than one ‘X’ will mean the paper is spoilt and cannot be counted. For the purposes of this exercise, learners are electing 21 representatives (21 seats).
Count the votes and tabulate the results on the board in the first column:
No. of votes for the mock provincial legislature (a)
% of total votes:
(a÷b) x 100
(c)
No. of seats in the mock provincial legislature
c÷21 (d)
Party A
Party B
Party C
Party D
Party E
Less spoilt votes
Total valid votes (b)
Ask learners to do the calculations for the last two columns on their own, using these formulas. If the result of (d) is not a whole number, how can the 21 seats be fairly divided among the parties?
Ask learners to work out the party political makeup of their mock provincial legislature’s ten NCOP members.
Number of seats held by each mock party (d)
d x 10 delegate places (f)
Number of delegate places
f÷number of provincial legislature seats (21)+1
Party A
Party B
Party C
Party D
Party E
Topics for debate
Unlike the National Assembly, not all of the NCOP’s members are permanent. The four special delegates of each provincial delegation change from time to time (although one of them is usually the Premier).
In what way could the provinces use this feature to their best advantage?
In what way could this feature be a disadvantage for the NCOP?
The NCOP has 90 provincial delegation members, compared to the 400 members of the National Assembly. Of these, only 54 are permanent members. What implications does this have:
for select committees?
for the ability of the NCOP to consider all the bills passed by the National Assembly?
– The Teacher/M & G Media, Johannesburg, August 1999.