Elections in South Africa
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Elections in South Africa are held for the National Assembly, provincial legislatures and municipal councils. Elections follow a five-year cycle, with national and provincial elections held simultaneously and municipal elections held two years later. The electoral system is based on party-list proportional representation, which means that parties are represented in proportion to their electoral support. For municipal councils there is a mixed-member system in which wards elect individual councillors alongside those named from party lists.
In elections of the National Assembly, every South African citizen who is 18 or older may vote, including (since the 2014 election) those resident outside South Africa. In elections of a provincial legislature or municipal council, only those resident within the province or municipality may vote. All elections are conducted by the Electoral Commission of South Africa, which is an independent body established by the Constitution.
History
Before Union
When the British took over the Cape, first in 1795 and then more permanently in 1806, they inherited a sprawling, thinly populated pastoral settlement that depended on the labour of slaves and a rural workforce of indigenous Khoikhoi whose condition was akin to serfdom. In 1806 the entire population of the colony consisted of fewer than 80,000 people: 26,768 whites, 1,200 free blacks (manumitted slaves), 29,861 slaves and 20,426 Khoikhoi.[1] From early on the British made a determined effort to remodel this society by introducing principles of freedom and equality before the law. In 1807 the British government ended the slave trade and, finally, in 1833 outlawed the practice of slavery throughout the Empire. [citation needed]
Under pressure from the humanitarian lobby in the UK, acting in concert with a local missionary campaign, the government abolished the Khoikhoi's serf-like status by the promulgation of Ordinance 50 of 1828.[2] According to the government's instructions, 'all Hottentots and other free persons of colour, lawfully residing within the said Colony, are and shall be, in the most full and ample manner, entitled to all and every the rights, privileges and benefits of the law, to which any other His Majesty's subjects, lawfully residing within the said Colony, are or can be entitled.'[3] This became known as the 'Hottentots' Magna Carta'. The equality of all people – black or white – appeared to be assured. As a result, when municipal boards were set up in the colony's towns and villages from 1836, any male resident who lived in a property with a yearly rent of not less than £10 could vote for his town board. From the very beginning, therefore, people of colour were able to participate in local elections.[4]
This principle of a non-racial franchise was to be entrenched when the Cape was granted representative government in 1853. Part of the reason, no doubt, lay in the desire to give propertied Khoikhoi a greater stake in the political system. In 1850 the Khoikhoi of the Kat River Settlement had risen in rebellion and, though the uprising was defeated, it did concentrate the minds of those colonial officials and politicians who were responsible for drawing up the constitution of 1853. As the Cape's Attorney General, William Porter, famously said: 'I would rather meet the Hottentot at the hustings voting for his representative than meet the Hottentot in the wilds with a gun on his shoulder.'[5] In terms of the constitution of 1853, any man who owned property worth at least £25 was entitled to vote for or stand in the Cape's Parliament. By 1886 Africans made up 43 per cent of the vote in six constituencies of the Eastern Cape, and were a real political force.[6] It was not long before white politicians began challenging the rights of Coloureds and Africans to vote. The passage of the Franchise and Ballot Act, which raised the property qualification from £25 to £75 in 1892, met with an angry response from African and Coloured voters.[7]
These developments were not without criticism or opposition. Indeed, the abolition of slavery and the promulgation of Ordinance 50, and the accompanying extension of rights to the black population, were deeply resented by the white Dutch farmers of the Cape as undermining their way of life. Starting in 1834, thousands of these Boers set out on one of the most defining events of white South African history – the Great Trek. The Dutch who moved away from the Cape did so in the hope of leaving British control and British ways of ordering society behind them. In the interior of southern Africa they would carve out independent states for themselves, the South African (or Transvaal) Republic and the Orange Free State, whose constitutions enshrined the principle of no equality between white and black in either church or state.
After the
Only white men were invited to consider the future of their country; women and all other racial groups were excluded. This was in some ways anomalous. After all, qualified black men had enjoyed the vote in the Cape since the 1850s and – as long as they had sufficient property, income and education – continued to do so. By 1909 there were 14,388 Coloured and 6,633 African voters in the Cape.[8] Between them they made up 14.8 per cent of the electorate. In Natal, too, African men had the right to vote, but it was so constrained by hurdles that it was almost theoretical. Not only did they have to prove they had property, but they also had to prove that they were 'civilised' and had been so for seven years. The Governor might then grant them the vote. Indians also had to overcome obstacles designed to prevent them from being enfranchised.[9] In the Transvaal and Orange Free State, only white men could vote.
The Cape argued that their non-racial franchise should be extended across the proposed Union. This was rejected by the Transvaal and Orange Free State. Finally, a compromise of sorts was arrived at, maintaining the Cape's existing voting system, without extending it to the rest of the country, but insisting that this compromise was entrenched in the constitution.[10] Africans and Coloured people would retain most of their voting rights in the Cape rights, but would not receive them in any other part of the Union.
African and Coloured politicians came together to resist these plans, and called on a former Cape Prime Minister,
At the Union
The
In the
Enfranchisement of white women and poor whites
In 1930 the National Party government of J. B. M. Hertzog passed the Women's Enfranchisement Act, which extended the right to vote and the right to stand for election to all white women over the age of 21. In the following year the Franchise Laws Amendment Act lifted the property and literacy requirements for white male voters in the Cape and Natal, with the result that all white citizens over 21 were enfranchised. As the exclusion of women and the literacy and property qualifications continued to apply to non-white voters, these acts had the effect of diluting their electoral power by more than doubling the size of the white electorate.
At the
Segregation of black voters
In 1936 the Hertzog government enacted the
Segregation of coloured voters
After coming to power in 1948 the National Party engaged in a policy of removing
A subsequent attempt by the government to circumvent the Supreme Court by creating a
This separate representation of coloured voters in the House of Assembly was ended in 1970. Instead, all coloured adults were given the right to vote for the
Republic referendum
In 1960 a whites-only referendum was held to decide whether South Africa should become a republic. No changes were made to the franchise with the Republic's emergence in 1961. However, with the policy of establishing Bantustans, the remaining black representation in the Senate was completely removed.
Tricameral Parliament
In 1983
End of Apartheid
During the
In the post-apartheid era, the
Voting districts
Each voter in South Africa is assigned to a voting district based on the voter's residence at the time that they
As of 2019, there were 22,933 voting districts nationwide.[14] The district boundaries are set by the Electoral Commission's Delimitation Directorate, and are reviewed and adjusted before each election.[12]
List of elections
Since 1910, parliamentary general elections have been held on the following dates.
- 15 September 1910
- 20 October 1915
- 10 March 1920
- 8 February 1921
- 19 June 1924
- 12 June 1929
- 17 May 1933
- 18 May 1938
- 7 July 1943
- 26 May 1948
- 15 April 1953
- 16 April 1958
- 18 October 1961
- 30 March 1966
- 22 April 1970
- 24 April 1974
- 30 November 1977
- 29 April 1981
- 22 and 28 August 1984 (House of Representatives and House of Delegates)
- 6 May 1987 (House of Assembly)
- 6 September 1989 (all three houses)
- 26–29 April 1994
- 2 June 1999
- 14 April 2004
- 22 April 2009
- 7 May 2014
- 8 May 2019
Last election results
2019 general election
Patriotic Alliance 6,660 | 0.04 | –0.03 | 0 | 0 | | ||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
African Democratic Change | 6,499 | 0.04 | New | 0 | New | ||||||
Economic Emancipation Forum | 6,321 | 0.04 | New | 0 | New | ||||||
Women Forward | 6,108 | 0.04 | New | 0 | New | ||||||
Christian Political Movement | 4,980 | 0.03 | New | 0 | New | ||||||
African Content Movement | 4,841 | 0.03 | New | 0 | New | ||||||
International Revelation Congress | 4,247 | 0.02 | New | 0 | New | ||||||
National People's Front | 4,019 | 0.02 | New | 0 | New | ||||||
African Renaissance Unity Party | 3,860 | 0.02 | New | 0 | New | ||||||
African Congress of Democrats | 3,768 | 0.02 | New | 0 | New | ||||||
South African National Congress of Traditional Authorities | 3,714 | 0.02 | New | 0 | New | ||||||
Compatriots of South Africa | 3,406 | 0.02 | New | 0 | New | ||||||
People's Revolutionary Movement | 2,844 | 0.02 | New | 0 | New | ||||||
Power of Africans Unity | 2,685 | 0.02 | New | 0 | New | ||||||
Free Democrats | 2,580 | 0.01 | New | 0 | New | ||||||
South African Maintenance and Estate Beneficiaries Association | 2,445 | 0.01 | New | 0 | New | ||||||
National People's Ambassadors | 1,979 | 0.01 | New | 0 | New | ||||||
Total | 17,437,379 | 100.00 | – | 400 | 0 | ||||||
Valid votes | 17,437,379 | 98.67 | |||||||||
Invalid/blank votes | 235,472 | 1.33 | |||||||||
Total votes | 17,672,851 | 100.00 | |||||||||
Registered voters/turnout | 26,756,649 | 66.05 | |||||||||
Source: Electoral Commission of South Africa |
See also
- Electoral calendar
- Electoral system
References
- ^ Martin Legassick, The struggle for the Eastern Cape, 1800 – 1854, KMM Review Publishing Company, Johannesburg, 2010, p. 5
- ^ Report of Commission of Inquiry regarding Cape Coloured Population of the Union, U.G. 54 – 1937, Government Printer, Pretoria, 1937, p. 212, para. 1034
- ^ MacAulay, Zachary (July 1829). "Natives of South Africa". Anti-Slavery Monthly Reporter. No. 50. Retrieved 11 May 2021.
- ^ Report of Commission of Inquiry regarding Cape Coloured Population of the Union, U.G. 54 – 1937, Government Printer, Pretoria, 1937, p.213, para 1037
- ^ Stanley Trapido, The friends of the natives: merchants, peasants and the political and ideological structure of liberalism in the Cape, 1854-1910, in Shula Marks and Anthony Atmore (eds.), Economy and society in pre-industrial South Africa, Longman, London, 1980, p. 262
- ^ Andre Odendaal, The Founders: The Origins of the ANC and the Struggle for Democracy in South Africa, Jacana, Auckland Park, 2012, p.96
- ^ Richard van der Ross, A Political and Social History of the Cape Coloured People, 1880 – 1970, Thesis submitted to the University of Cape Town, 1973, UCT Special Collections, p. 11
- ^ L. M. Thompson, The Unification of South Africa, 1902 – 1910, Oxford at the Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1960, p. 110
- ^ L. M. Thompson, The Unification of South Africa, 1902 – 1910, Oxford at the Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1960, p. 111
- ^ National Archive, Secret Despatch from Selborne to Crewe, 24 October 1908, PRO CO 879/106/8
- ^ Martin Plaut, Promise and Despair, the First Struggle for a Non-Racial South Africa, Jacana Press, 2016
- ^ a b c Electoral Commission of South Africa. "About voting districts and stations". Retrieved 24 February 2020.
Each voting district is serviced by one voting station only.
- ^ "Can you vote at any voting station? Yes, you can, but…". 7 May 2019. Retrieved 24 February 2020.
- ^ "Publication of the Voting District including mobile stations". SABC News. 7 March 2019. Retrieved 24 February 2020.
External links
- "Women's suffrage". Archived from the original on 5 March 2006. Retrieved 4 March 2006.
- Adam Carr's Election Archive
- African Elections Database
- Democratic Development in South Africa Archived 3 March 2016 at the Wayback Machine from the Dean Peter Krogh Foreign Affairs Digital Archives Archived 12 January 2012 at the Wayback Machine