Date: 28/10/2010
Source: The Democratic Alliance
Title: DA: Lovemore: Address by DA MP, on the Municipal Electoral Amendment Bill, National Assembly

I will be addressing today the broader environment of which this Bill forms part - that of electoral reform. I will be addressing briefly the issues that should have formed part of this Bill and do not.

In 2002 an Electoral Task Team was established to draft legislation for the next national and provincial elections. The provisions of the final Constitution did not extend beyond the elections held in 1999, and there was no electoral system prescribed for the 2004 and subsequent elections. There was therefore, and still is, something of a legislative vaccuum in this regard and much scope for the reform of the electoral system in South Africa.

The report of the Electoral Task Team, chaired by Dr Frederik Van Zyl Slabbert, was released in January 2003. To date, the majority recommendations contained in that report have not been implemented.

The Report refers primarily to national and provincial elections. All of the values and much of the content is equally applicable to local government elections.

The Democratic Alliance electoral system policy mirrors the majority conclusions of Dr Van Zyl Slabbert and his team. The majority party, however, has not subscribed to the recommendations. We hope they will consider doing so.

Four core values guided the work of the Task Team.

These were :
• Fairness
• Inclusiveness
• Simplicity
• Accountability

My focus this afternoon will be on fairness and on accountability.
Fairness means that every eligible voter must be able to vote and that every vote carries equal value. The body that is elected must reflect fairly the wishes of the voters.

This is the case, with one very important exception.

The President, the Premiers and, in this case, Mayors, are not chosen by the electorate but they are deployed by the ruling party, and are often also removed when their level of favour within the party declines.

The DA believes that voters must directly elect the public representatives who will head a specific sphere of government - the person who will ultimately be responsible for providing political leadership.

We call, thus, for future municipal electoral legislation to include the direct election, by the people, of the Mayor of their town or municipality.

Speaker, the IEC's own 2009 survey showed that 27% of voters found stations difficult to access, particularly for the disabled and the elderly. Almost 5 million voters struggled to access their voting venues. If fairness means that every eligible voter must be able to vote, then accessibility to voting stations must receive urgent attention. 

Accountability, Speaker, demands full understanding of the power of the vote. 
In April of this year, Dr Mamphela Ramphele began her campaign for extended voter education. 
She said : "The quality of political education has not served voters well. Most South Africans are new to democracy and the exercise of their vote. 
Much more effort is needed in educating them about democracy, but the Independent Electoral Commission has unfortunately not focused enough attention on the principle of choice in voter education. 
Our schools have also not utilised the Life Orientation programme in the curriculum to educate about democracy. New voters are not provided with enough opportunities to understand the role of citizens as sovereigns to hold public officials accountable. Affirming the power of the individual vote to signal pleasure or displeasure with the performance of public officials needs to be at the core of our political-education programmes."

Dr Brigalia Bam told the Home Affairs portfolio committee recently that the Commission does not intend to extend its education to include the use of a vote to vote OUT a government that is not delivering.

This is disappointing. It will be up to civil society and to the parties committed to democracy to spread this message.

What certainly can and should be legislated is the Electoral Task Team's majority recommendation of a mix of a constituency-based and proportional system for ALL levels of government and not only at the local government level.

Dr Van Zyl Slabbert's team found that approximately 40% of voters felt that the current system does NOT help voters hold individual representatives accountable. The electoral system should put a face to a party, somebody who has responsibility for a designated area, somebody who is identifiable and accessible between elections, somebody who is directly accountable to voters. 

Lack of accountability was seen as a weak point in a system with which voters were otherwise generally satisfied.

The task team's majority finding that a constituency-based electoral system should be implemented at all levels of government is fully endorsed by the DA. It was rejected by the ANC. 

The ANC owes the public serious consideration of the value of accountability in the crafting of future electoral legislation.

Speaker, in conclusion, the values of fairness, simplicity and inclusivesness in our electoral system have been relatively well accommodated, but still leave room for significant improvement.

The value of accountability is only achieved at local government level. Electoral reform must address this.