South Africa finally has a normal democracy

The 2024 National and Provincial Elections saw South Africa’s democracy achieve normality for the first time in its thirty-year existence when the African National Congress (ANC) received less than 50% of the vote.

This is according to Freedom Front Plus (FF+) leader Dr Corne Mulder, who told Newsday that South Africa’s democracy was never intended to have a party that attains the majority of the national vote.

“Our electoral system is strictly proportional representation. It’s abnormal in a proportional representation system that one party attains more than 50% on their own,” he said.

“For example, in Europe, be that Belgium or Germany, the most successful party will get 34% and form a coalition.”

He added that 2024 was the first time that no South African party had a majority, forcing them to form coalitions at the national level.

This ultimately led to the formation of the Government of National Unity (GNU) after the ANC lost significant support and was forced to seek coalition partners.

The GNU now comprises ten parties, including the Democratic Alliance (DA), the former official opposition. The two parties comprise 85% of the GNU’s seats in the National Assembly.

After the DA left its post as the official opposition, the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), the uMkhonto we Sizwe (MK) party, the African Transformation Movement (ATM), and the United African Transformation (UAT) joined forces to form the Progressive Caucus.

The coalition, which became the official opposition, initially had seven members. However, within days of its formation, the other three parties left to join the GNU. 

However, it was never intended to take this long for the country’s democracy to normalise, as the proportional representation system was chosen to encourage coalitions in government.

One of the points of discussion during the Convention for a Democratic South Africa (Codesa) was what the essential features of the new electoral system would be.

In a paper titled How the South African electoral system was negotiated, Professor Tom Lodge said three of the main parties in the discussion advocated for some form of proportional representation.

These were the ANC, the Democratic Party, which later merged to form the DA, and the National Party.

Proportional representation refers to how subgroups of the electorate are represented in the elected body after an election.

In South Africa’s case, the seats allocated to parties in the National Assembly, which is the elected body, are allocated proportionally.

The Helen Suzman Foundation says the proportional representation system “was selected for its inclusiveness, its simplicity, and its tendency to encourage coalition government.”

Your vote counts

Mulder says that there is a misconception among South African voters that they need to vote for a big party for their mark to make a difference.

“You don’t have to vote for a party just because they are bigger and have a better chance of competing in an election,” he argues.

Instead, Mulder says that South Africans must engage in issue voting when at the polls.

“You should vote for the party closest to what you stand for. You should know that the party will take your ideals and principles into a coalition government, and you will be represented there.”

The FF+ leader also mentioned how challenging it is to convince young people to vote.

South Africa has seen a significant decrease in voter turnout since 1994, with apathy among young people being a major contributor.

According to the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC), voter turnout is the percentage of registered voters who cast their vote. This metric went from 89.3% in 1999 to 58.6% 25 years later.

However, the global standard for voter turnout uses the total number of eligible voters as the denominator. Using this definition, voter turnout has dropped from 85.5% in 1994 to 39.6% in 2024.

During the 2024 elections, those aged between 19 and 29 had the lowest voter turnout of all age groups.

While many argue that not participating in elections is because they feel as if their vote doesn’t count, Mulder argues that he has experienced outcomes where the opposite has been proven to be true

“I’ve seen results in bi-elections where a seat is calculated using the proportional lists, and the third number after the comma determines who will be elected.