Your choice: Candidate or party?

In 2025, the Electoral Reform Consultation Panel should recommend an electoral system for South Africa. But the existing parties must approve any legal changes. Can we really expect those same parties to enhance accountability of individual elected members and reduce party influence? 

The mandate of the panel is “to independently investigate, consult on, report on and make recommendations in respect of potential reforms of the electoral system for the election of the National Assembly and the election of the provincial legislatures …”

We could add “… and make them palatable to parties”.

However, we can propose electoral reform in which:

• Each MP has a direct voter mandate through a constituency system; and
• The end-result is highly proportional.

This summary proposal for the National Assembly includes:

1. Constituency MPs, constituting 67% of all MPs, will be elected on a “first past the post” (“FPP”) method, one per constituency (275 constituencies in South Africa)
2. Proportional representation (“PR”) MPs, constituting 33% of all MPs (135 PR MPs), will increase representation of under-represented parties, selected from that party’s losing candidates in the constituency election.  
3. PR MPs will be selected strictly according to a ranking of actual votes received by that party’s losing candidates – thus they will be directly selected by voters, only indirectly by party leadership.  (For clarity, if Party X is due three PR seats, then its three losing candidates with most votes in their specific constituencies will be selected, regardless of any “party list”).
4. PR seats will be preferentially allocated to parties with the largest votes to match their seats with votes, in preference to parties with smaller votes.

The key difference to most recommendations is that there is no party list for PR MPs; they are selected by the voters themselves.

How does the system meet the Electoral Reform Consultation Panel criteria?

Inclusivity	All votes are counted
Fairness	Close alignment between votes and seats
Accountability	Each MP (including each PR MP) is tied to a constituency with accountability to voters of that constituency
Simplicity	Each voter only casts one vote; easy to count and tabulate
Electoral manageability	Simple allocation of PR seats according to final rules
Transparency	Result is clear

We can consider an example.

The 2024 election in the United Kingdom (on a fully “first past the post” system) resulted in a misalignment of Labour Party seats (63%) and votes (34%).

If the above proposal operated in the 2024 UK general election, the results would have been adjusted as follows (FPP seats assumed to be 67% of total seats):

	Seats won directly	FPP allocation 67% of total	National vote	PR allocation 33%	Adjusted final seats	Comment on representation
Labour Party	63%	42%	34%	–	42%	8% over-represented
Conservative Party	19%	13%	24%	11%	24%
Reform UK	1%	1%	14%	13%	14%
Liberal Democrats	11%	7%	12%	5%	12%
Green Party	1%	1%	7%	4%	5%	2% under-represented
Others	5%	3%	9%	–	3%	Varies by party based on FPP result

There would still be some misalignment between seats and votes for the Labour Party, but the large discrepancy of the actual FPP result is avoided.  Similarly, the Reform Party which only gained 1% of FPP seats would have its total seats boosted to match its vote.  The Green Party is not fully boosted to its actual vote since the number of PR seats is limited and larger parties are awarded first.

Some implications include:

1. About half of all constituencies will have two MPs, usually in the larger constituencies where the losing candidates can gain more votes than losing colleagues in constituencies with a smaller number of voters.
2. Constituencies can follow local government municipal and/or ward boundaries since these are already subject to delimitation.  They can vary in numbers of voters, within limits.
3. A voter can apply tactical voting, balancing support between candidates and parties, to support more likely winners and well-placed losing candidates (providing a direct mandate to MPs).
4. A by-election will be required for a FPP seat vacancy. A PR seat vacancy will be filled by strict application of the selection rules for that Party as constituted at the time of the last election, regardless of membership changes since the election.
5. MPs will not lose their seats if party membership is terminated since their mandates are derived directly from voters (indirectly from parties).
6. Independent candidates can be regarded as an “informal” party when allocating PR seats.

We have seen the current “temporary” electoral system last for 30 years where your choice is party only — driven by party vested interests.  

But your choice could be candidate or party.

Ken Robinson is a chartered accountant (SA) and retired managing director of a company, specialising in complex process and organisation transformations involving multiple stakeholders and parties with conflicting interests.