Parliament must serve the masses

By Professor Daniel Plaatjies

At the heart of this political impasse is the nature, form and structure of proportional party representation in Parliament, writes Daniel Plaatjies.

Parliamentary impasse is a consequence of unrepresentative representatives through the proportional representative (PR) system.

The current impasse in Parliament is a residue of the fourth session of Parliament, a robust and acrimonious national election campaign, and where it concerns the relationship between the ANC and EFF the discipline and expulsion of the EFF leadership from its political school, the ANC.

It is conceivable that Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa, one of the chief negotiators of the constitution and the electoral law, must have wondered – given the insults and total disrespectful behaviour of Members of Parliament while sitting on benches of the house during the debate on the office of the Speaker – what has gone wrong with the project of reconciliation, compromise, inclusivity and representativeness of the voices of the people.

Also, given our 20 years of constitutional democracy with a parliament, why is it then that there continues within the fabric of our Parliament the residues of a Westminster-style parliamentary system.

At the heart of this problem is the nature, form and structure of proportional party representation in Parliament.

While the opposition party Members of Parliament are hell-bent on discussing a vote of no confidence in the Speaker, all party MPs lost a golden opportunity to discuss the form and structure of accountability.

That is, the problem of parliamentary accountability relative to public accountability.

This debate must critique our proportional representation parliamentary system and embed within this dialogue the nature and extent, including complex practicalities, of accountability to Parliament.

The fundamental principle of a discussion in the house must be that accountability runs across the honourable bums on benches, including the offices of Speakers, the Presidency and the executive.

So, the contesting exercise of parliamentary responsibility and accountability affects all the PPMPs. But accountability to what and whom and what are the threads to public accountability?

This year’s elections show through the political party proportional representation of political parties that the ANC has 249 of the 400 seats of Parliament, followed by the DA with 89 seats and the EFF with 25 seats.

The other smaller parties together have 24 seats. All parties therefore have benefited from the proportional representation system.

The PR system, because of its inclusivity test, allows for representation in Parliament of both the party who won the majority vote of our citizens and for those who won a percentage share of seats in the National Assembly.

So, across the political party representation, those who occupy seats are not directly voted into office by the citizens.

At the beginning of our fifth Parliament, parties nominated candidates and the elections within parliament followed secret ballot contests for Speaker and president.

The results comprehensively show on both secret elections the split along political parties with the secured votes for the Speaker and President from the ANC and the opponent nominees from the DA.

That’s the result of a simple democratic vote.

So why is it that proportional representation is on order to get into the Parliament for party MPs, but when the bums are on seats in Parliament, the system gets lambasted?

Given the distribution of seats in Parliament and the constitutional and legislative requirement of ministers to be party MPs, bar two selected by the president, do the small parties really expect the majority party in Parliament and the governing party, to account to them?

Is there not a much more serious case to discuss the nature and extent of parliamentary accountability, real public accountability to the citizens and not just certain sections of society of PPMPs within the context of proportional representation?

South Africans, at least for those to whom it matters, are experiencing high levels of political ludicrousness and irrationality that have led to slippages in parliamentary governance.

The idea mooted by the opposition party MPs that the presiding officer of Parliament, in this instance the Speaker, must be totally impartial and non-partisan, is oblivious to the system of proportional political party representation.

The proportions that the Speaker must not be a senior member of a political party, in this instance, the chairperson of the ANC, and must resign from their political party, signals irrational rigidities to be placed on the current and future political party representations in Parliament, and on the internal systems and policy decisions of a political party in deciding its representatives.

Speakers in the countries mentioned by party MPs in Parliament the past week are functioning in a constituency system and when elected to the position of Speaker retains their constituency seat even in follow-up elections.

It’s a secure seat which creates its own dilemma for citizens in consecutive elections.

Notwithstanding, should the same then not hold for political party leaders nominated and elected such as the President, premiers and mayors given their uncontested allegiance to their parties?

In the UK’s House of Commons, the Speaker resigns from the political party, thereby guaranteeing political impartiality and continues to remain separate from political issues in retirement.

Given the constituency nature, Speakers will contest elections in their constituencies unopposed by political parties, including the former party, a definite guarantee to return to Parliament as Speaker.

They therefore don’t campaign on any political issue and simply stand as “the Speaker seeking re-election”.

In the Canadian system, the Speaker is appointed by the governor general on the recommendation of the prime minister.

The Speaker’s impartiality is guaranteed by withdrawing from political party operations when elected by the Commons. In this system ministers and party leaders may not be elected to the office of Speaker.

The proportional lists that parties table with the Independent Electoral Commission before the elections invariably shows or eclipse the leadership in the party, especially those in office-bearer positions who contest either the presidential position or the position of premier within provinces.

So the logic is that the senior leadership across the political party spectrum will deploy its leadership in parliament or legislatures to be the custodians and implement the principles of this party.

In that way, all opposing parties in the PR systems, guides, directs and ensures the hegemony of its own political party.

That’s why there are caucuses to give effect to this hegemony.

However, though it’s about the political party, parliamentarians individually combine or come together under the rubric of its political party to seek for holes in the hegemony of a political party, question the integrity and leadership of our political party to enable to reflect its relative position it holds in parliament.

The consequence is that no political party represents the public.

The questions asked and the answers given are not always in the interest of the public, but more in the interest of returning the political party – opposition or governing party. That is the nature of our parliamentary accountability.

International experiences on proportional representation show that the voting numbers for a party are not necessarily direct voter support for a party.

Like in South Africa, political party proportional representation can lead to: instability in parliamentary governance; the hijacking of parliament by small political parties; a tension between principle and politics between the majority party and small, and very small political parties; back-room deals between party MPs and between political parties either to improve legislation or to create ingredients of ungovernability for the majority party; and last, that no single party MP can be held accountable, other than the political party.

The litmus test for Parliament, its presiding officers and whips from political parties is to go back to the basics of parliamentary accountability.

This requires a consensus-driven political management plan to act on principle and not politics in managing the residues of the last session of the fourth Parliament and the national elections campaign of political parties.

More specifically, those former and expelled members of the ANC must accept that part of their task as party MPs is to contest and contribute to the transformation of Parliament and society within the regulatory system of parliamentary system of governance.

If the system does not work, then put the system up for parliamentary debate.

Given that all in the political governance space, such as Parliament and the executive, it is correct to argue that the president, premier, Speakers, including the PPMPs and the executive, must account to the public.

The governing party has the opportunity to call imbizos to report on its performance in government and listen to a range of complaints from communities.

However, all party MPs report and accounts to the structures of the their political parties for performance in Parliament.

There is a sufficient historic context why South African constitutional negotiators and the constitutional assembly opted for a proportional party representative system that gives minorities a voice.

If this was not the case and not in law, then surely many parties and party MPs would not be in Parliament. So these MPs must consider how they, the executive and the president address public accountability, of which parliamentary accountability is a component, as opposed to parliamentary accountability subtext where the government of the majority party in Parliament accounts to smaller parties during questions and answers?

This practice of parliamentary accountability is both by design and default to ensure inclusivity of minorities, but excludes the citizens. Public accountability from all in Parliament and the executives must be the new normal.

This article was first seen in the Sunday Independent, 21 September 2014.