How party-driven electoral system fails SA

by PETER CURLE

Unlike in most western democracies, MPs in this country are apparatchiks of political parties rather than directly elected representatives.

zuma

he silence of the ANC in confronting and dealing with state capture and corruption has highlighted an essential weakness in SA’s Constitution.

Unlike in most western democracies, MPs in this country are apparatchiks of political parties rather than directly elected representatives of the people.

In a normal representative democracy, there is a constituency system. People seeking appointment to stand as candidates for election as MPs undergo a rigorous local selection process by the local committees of their political parties. They then campaign for election locally in the constituency concerned.

If elected, they are closely identified with that constituency. They are often referred to in Parliament as "the member for" that particular constituency.

Such MPs will conduct constituency "report-backs" to the people who have elected them locally. They remain in close contact with the locality concerned and receive constant input and feedback from the local electorate.

They are in touch with the people in a very real sense and feel accountable to them. By contrast, in SA there is no such local contact or local representation by MPs.

The party is elected by the country as a whole on a proportional system.

The party then appoints its MPs, who are beholden to the party. They owe their loyalty to it, not to a local electorate. They are party apparatchiks, not directly elected representatives of the people.

This is important because an essential element of normal parliamentary democracy is lost in SA.

Apart from its legislative function, the most important role of Parliament is to hold the executive to account. But in SA, the executive controls the majority party and its MPs.

Kris Dobie’s article (Firms bear brunt, but Jacob Zuma escapes public quest for justice, September 28), highlights the consequences of this: "The ordinary parliamentarians might on paper have the power to hold the executive to account, but in practice, they are the political juniors of those embroiled in corruption and are dependent on them for their continued employment."

By contrast, in a constituency system the MPs, through direct and constant feedback from those who elected them, would sense the mood of the people.

They would have an immediate and effective gauge of the intolerance of matters such as corruption.

They would fear deselection to stand as candidates in the next general election, or defeat in such an election, if they do not fully and properly represent the views of their constituency committee or electorate.

The unfortunate effect of the lack of this normal ingredient of parliamentary democracy in SA is the absence of effective parliamentary oversight of the government. Beholden to the governing party, the MPs merely acquiesce.

As a result, extraordinary things that would result in the swift dismissal or impeachment of a leader in most democracies elsewhere are tolerated here.

The spending of R250m of public money to build a private pleasure palace for President Jacob Zuma at Nkandla is accepted.

If he repays only R7m of this personally, that is okay. How many clinics or schools could have been built with these funds? But he is so confident of his loyal party apparatchiks that he giggles in Parliament about all of it.

At least those funds were spent in SA. What has taken place subsequently is on a far grander and more sinister scale. It appears that billions of rand have been looted from state-owned enterprises in a systematic way. These funds have left SA, weakening the rand, and inflation and interest rates are higher as a result. The economy is adversely affected and unemployment and poverty increase.

It is clear that foreign suppliers of equipment to state-owned enterprises have been preferred over local manufacturers who employ South Africans because it is easier to hide corrupt payments to third parties overseas than locally. All of this has been accompanied by the capture and misuse of certain key state institutions, to blunt any effective extraparliamentary opposition to the corruption.

This has led to the courts being the sole rampart against abuse and corruption.

This is unfortunate, as it places an undue burden on the judiciary, and others such as the previous public protector, to fill the gap left by the lack of proper parliamentary oversight.

The role of MPs, most often through the parliamentary committee system, should be to interrogate and investigate all areas of the executive’s misdeeds. Instead, this is falling on the courts, placing a strain on the constitutional concept of the separation of the powers of the legislature, executive and judiciary. As a result, the judiciary is accused on occasion of overreach.

This happens because civil society organisations and the parliamentary opposition have lost faith in Parliament to uphold the process of democratic accountability. They thus seek recourse to the courts as the only available remedy to the problem.

Let’s hope that at some stage in the future, there will be a constituency system for Parliament to help avoid some of the problems this system is producing.

This article first appeared in BusinessDay on 5 October 2017.

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