Boraine calls a reformed election system

Published Oct 16, 2008

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By Ella Smook

Three prominent political commentators have called for the implementation of the electoral reform contained in a proposal which the government promised to consider three years ago, but never did.

Speaking last night about electoral reform as part of the Difficult Dialogues, a discussion series hosted by the Economic Justice Initiative, vice-chairperson of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission Alex Boraine said the reason the government allowed the proposal to slide into oblivion was because "political bosses preferred to hold to themselves the power".

The new electoral system was due to be considered in 2005, and was contained in a report submitted to the Cabinet by an electoral task team two years previously.

It held the four fundamental values of fairness, inclusiveness, simplicity and accountability which would lead to true accountability on the part of the government, and was the system then favoured by the majority, speaker Wilmot James, executive director of the Africa Genome Education Institute, explained.

This so-called multi-member constituency system would allow the election of 400 MPs - 100 of them on the basis of proportional representation, and the other 300 on a constituency basis.

However, the department to oversee these changes, Home Affairs, had "dropped the ball" and had not initiated discussions, thus failing to act on a Cabinet decision, said James.

"Do you know the name of your MP?" Boraine asked last night's audience, who replied in the negative.

"Nobody does," he confirmed.

"That is why accountability is non-existent except for every five years when the party is held to account."

Boraine said without accountability there could be no democracy, and that talk about "our wonderful democracy" was a contradiction in terms.

Because political bosses clung to power under the current electoral system, their followers and MPs became subservient and remained to serve their political bosses rather than the electorate, because there was no constituency to boot out non-performers at election time.

"If you are going to have genuine democracy, there has to be a viable alternative to the government in power. We simply don't have that," Boraine said.

Also speaking on Wednesday night, freelance journalist Zubeida Jaffer said the electoral situation was "untenable".

"We feel such a distance between the leaders and the people and there is a sense of being disempowered," she said.

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