South Africa: Proportional Representation in the Puzzle to Stabilize Democracy

Abstract

The institutions of the Union of South Africa (established in 1910) were largely inherited from the British colonial institutions which had been first imported and then adapted by the British/Dutch/French settler regime which had controlled South African administration since the eighteenth century. Thus a classically British system of single-member districts and plurality rule was used for all elections to the effectively whites-only House of Assembly which sat until it was swept away in 1994. Between 1910 and 1948 governments were dominated by coalitions led by English South African parties. However, in 1948 D. F. Malan’s Afrikaner National Party won 52 per cent of the seats in parliament (with 42 per cent of the popular vote) to Jan Smut’s United Party’s 42 per cent of the seats (based on 52 per cent of the popular vote). Subsequently every government between 1948 and 1994 was based on a National Party majority. The ending of apartheid and the collapse of the white regime in South Africa led to a switch to list proportional representation to elect members of the National Assembly in 1994 and beyond.

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