Yesterday I made a comment on the different electoral systems that we use for elections in Botswana and South Africa and the impact it has on the results and allocation of seats in Parliament. Following some of the posts suggesting that i should have given the advantages and disadvantages of the 2 systems, I wish to do so below. The main advantage of the constituency system or First Past the Post (FPTP) as it is commonly refereed to is that it is simple to understand and implement. Voters go to the polls knowing who the candidates are and you just have to make a mark against your candidate. As soon as polls close the ballots are counted and the winner announced on the spot, unlike with Proportional Representation (PR) where the national results have to be tallied and seats allocated to the parties. The second key advantage is that each constituency is associated with a specific MP. The constituents know who to approach about the local issues. The disadvantages are that the winning candidates in most cases do not have the majority support of the voters, particularly where there are more than 2 candidates in the race. As a way of an example, in the 2009 elections, 9,767 people voted in Lobatse and Modubule won with less than 43% of the votes cast. Many other MPs won with less than 50% support of the people who voted, which affects the legitimacy of the winners in the eyes of the voters. The other disadvantage is in the allocation of seats as is the case in Botswana. In the last election, the BDP secured 53% of the votes and in return got 79% of the seats, which can be a source of future political instability. In 1998 Lesotho had elections using the FPTP system and the winning party (LCD) secured 60% of the votes but got 79 seats out of the 80 in Parliament, as a result, Maseru went up in flames and Botswana was one of the countries that had to intervene militarily. The main advantage of PR is that every vote counts. Even if you support a very weak party in your area, the vote will be part of a national count and decide on the seats allocation. Under the system, smaller parties have a chance of making it to Parliament and all of society feels that the law making house also represents them. The allocation of seats is reflective of the peoples choices between the contesting parties and you can truly say that the people have spoken. The disadvantages are that the MPs are not identified with specific localities as in FPTP. Its also possible to have a weak government under PR where no 1 party has an outright majority, requiring the formation of coalitions. I hope that the above summary will be helpful to those who were interested in the advantages of the different systems. The BCP proposes that we should have a system that combines PR and FPTP, known as Mixed Member Proportional Representation. Under this system, Parliament has seats that are won through constituencies and others that are distributed on the basis of proportionality, given the election results. Lesotho is currently using the system and so is Germany. My apologies for the lengthy post, hope its informative...
Posted on: Thu, 15 May 2014 06:20:29 +0000
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