South Africa's general election 27–29 April 1994

86 Notes on Recent Elections

The Aftermath

Despite its success, the winning coalition had some difficulty in coordinating its actions. The government which emerges from this election will be the product of internal bargaining and negotiation, like all Italian governments before the reform. For example, the Lega’s ideal of the state is a loose federation, while the Alleanza Nazionale is strongly orientated towards a highly centralized state. The electoral formula gave the majority to one side but cannot ensure cohesion among its components.

Notes

1. Supplement0 Ordinario della Gazzetta Ufficiale, n. 195 de1 20 agosto 1993, serie generale. 2. G. Pasquino, The Electoral Reform Referendums, in R. Leonardi and F. Anderlini (editors),

Italian Politics: A Review, Vol. 6, (London: Pinter Publishers, 1992), pp. 9-24; D. Hine and V. della Sala, The Italian General Election of 1992, Electoral Studies, 11 4, 1992, 362-367.

3. Bellu G. M., Bonsanti, S., I2 0-0110, (Rome: La Terza, 1993). 4. Probably the best recent publication on the subject is M. Teodori, Una Nuova

Repubblica?, (Piacenza: Sperling & Kupfer, 1994). 5. D. Hine, The New Italian Electoral System, Newsletter of the Association for the Study

of Modern Italy, 1993, n. 24, 27-33; R. D’Alimonte, A. Chiaramonte, 11 nuovo sistema elettorale Italiano: Quali opportunita? Rivista Italian di Scienza Politica, 3, December 1993, 512-547.

6. By the ‘Hamilton method’ we mean that each party is awarded as many seats as it has ‘natural quotients’ where the natural quotient is valid votes divided by the number of seats (155). Remaining seats are awarded to parties in descending order of largest remain- ders. See M. Balinski and H. P. Young, Fair Representation, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1982) p. 17.

7. Balinski and Young, Fair Representation, p. 18. 8. R. Mannheimer (editor), Le Lega Lombarda, (Milan: Feltrinelli, 1991). 9. L’Espresso, no. 1 and no. 5, January 1994.

10. See G. Credazzi, Nove alleati cercasi, Cohere della Sera, 30 March 1994, p. 2; G. Credaz, Senato: Biscione a caccia di sei voti, Cohere della Sera, 31 March 1994, p. 2.

South Africa’s General Election 27-29 April 1994

ALEXANDERJOHNSTON

Department of Politics, University of Natal, Faculty of Hmanities, King George I’dvenue, Durban 4001, South Africa

Electoral System

South Africa’s election of 27-29 April 1994 marked a striking departure from the past. For the first time, the whole adult population of South Africa voted together for representative and governing institutions. The deliberations and decisions of these bodies will be legitimate for the entire country and not, as hitherto, some partitioned and/or segregated portion of the territory and people.

Notes on Recent Elections x7

Voters’ choices were recorded in a double ballot system for a 400 member National Assembly (which will also function as a Constituent Assembly, or ‘Constitution-Making Body’) and for nine regional parliaments. The electoral system was the outcome of extensive bargaining in a multi-party negotiating forum whose deliberations (April-November 1994) marked the final phase of transitional negotiations which began in February 1990.

Although 26 parties took part in this final round of bargaining, bilateral under- standings between the two most substantial political forces, the African National Congress (ANC) and the white minority government, controlled by the National Party (NP), were particularly influential in shaping all agreements reached, includ- ing that on the electoral system.

Among the main features of the electoral system, the following points should be noted. ?? The key element is a list system of proportional representation in which parties

are allocated seats in both the National and Regional Assemblies in direct proportion to the percentage of the total votes cast for each one.

?? Each party may compile three lists; a national list from which members of the National Assembly are drawn; a regional-to-national list, compiled by the party organisations in the regions, from which individuals go to the National Assembly as representatives of that region; a list from which members of the regional parliaments are drawn.

?? Each voter may vote twice, once for the National Assembly and once for the Regional Parliament.

?? The votes for the National Assembly are counted first to yield national totals for the parties, These totals determine the percentages of 200 seats for each party. The same votes are made to yield regional totals. Prior to the election, each region was allocated a percentage of the other 200 National Assembly seats, on the basis of population. The largest allocation (43) is for the Pretoria/Witwatersrand/ Vereeniging (PWV) region. The smallest is for the North-West region (4). The regional percentages gained by the parties determine what percentage of a region’s seats each party receives. For example, Natal received 40 of the 200 regional seats in the National Assembly; the Inkatha Freedom Party received 50.3 per cent of the National Assembly votes in Natal, and so took 20 of the regional- to-national seats.

?? The results of the second ballot determine in simple proportion the number of seats for each party in the regional legislatures. Like the regional seats in the National Assembly, the seats in these bodies are allocated on the basis of population. The two largest regional assemblies are those of the PWV (86 seats) and Natal (80 seats). The smallest are the Northern Cape, Orange Free State, and Eastern Transvaal (30 each).

Background to the Election

F W de Klerk’s reforms of February 1990, which unbanned South African liberation movements and signalled the repeal of apartheid laws, cleared the way for negotiations on a new constitution and the freeing of political activity. In these altered conditions, all organised political groups, but especially the ANC and the NP, were faced with the need for drastic changes in orientation and oganisa- tion.


For 42 years, the NP had been the vehicle of white minority rule and Afrikaner selfdetermination, buttressed by formidable parliamentary majorities and the resources of patronage and repression associated with a one-party state. In the wake of de Klerk’s reforms, the party had to contemplate loss of exclusive power, the abandonment of what remained of its ideology, and the prospect of transforming itself from an exclusive into a multiracial organisation.

For its part, the ANC had to relocate its base of operations from exile to inside South Africa, repatriating party structures and thousands of members in the process. The abandonment of armed struggle, boycott and sanctions had to be justified to its members. At the same time the ANC had to gear itself to compete for votes in a democratic election and create a viable party structure out of the disparate elements which made it up. Exiles, newly-released prisoners, township, community and labour organisations which had acted as fronts for the ANC in the 1980s military forma- tions, and last but not least, the South African Communist Party, had to be shaped into a coherent and streamlined organisation which could deliver electoral victory.

While carrying out these tasks of internal reconstruction, the ANC and the NP had to take the initiative in negotiating a democratic transformation. In doing this, the two parties faced four principal obstacles.

The first was their own substantive disagreements on the elements of the new political system. Among these were the make-up of the constitution-making body (multi-party forum or constituent assembly?), whether power-sharing should be infor- mal or embedded, and centralization versus federalism. The second difficulty was the nature of the relationship between the ANC and the government/NP. In the interests of stability and confidence they had to be partners, but inescapably they were also political competitors. This problem was compounded by a third factor, mutual distrust. Each side had comprehensively demonised the other for decades before 1990, and after that date, endemic political violence corrupted the atmosphere in which the negotiations took place. Fourthly, even when the ANC and the government/NP found a will to compromise which could overcome all these difficulties and set an election date, there remained the problem of manufacturing a consensus inclusive enough of other forces to make the election fully legitimate.

This last issue dominated the final stages of transition after June 1993, when the ANC and the government/NP agreed on 27 April 1994 as the date of the first non- racial elections. The question of the election date became a trial of strength between the ANUgovernment axis and a rejectionist front. This uneasy coalition embraced the aspiration to ethno-racial self-determination of the Afrikaner right wing, and conservative black interests centred on the various territorial creations of apartheid, collectively known as ‘homelands’. These conservative interests were concerned to insulate themselves against the certainty of an ANC government at national level by various federal or confederal strategies.

The most substantial force among the latter was KwaZulu and the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) whose leader, Mangosuthu Buthelezi had for many years pursued an agenda combining both collusion with and opposition to white minority rule. Zulu ethnic@ and tradition, embracing chiefly rule and the status and claims of the Zulu monarchy, are substantial assets which Buthelezi and the IFP have deployed to considerable effect in mobilizing popular support and governing KwaZulu as a one-party fief.

Much of the post-1990 violence centred on Natal and KwaZulu where since the mid-1980s there had been bitter and often violent conflict between Inkatha and

Notes on Recent Elections 89

the IJnited Democratic front, the coalition of community and labour organisations which functioned as an above-ground vehicle for the ANC.

The key event in breaking the impasse between the rejectionists and the transitional authorities, which embodied the ANC/government axis, was the collapse of Chief Lucas Mangope’s homeland administration in Bophuthatswana. The institutions in question were the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) which was charged with running the election and the Transitional Executive Council (TEC), a multiparty body whose task was to oversee the business of government between the signing of the interim constitution and the election of a new government. Mangope’s refusal to cooperate fully with these bodies, which made the holding of free and fair elections in Bophuthatswana impossible, led to widespread unrest in the territory.

A rash effort by the paramilitary forces of the white right to shore up Mangope’s regime ended in failure and humiliation, which in turn exposed the fault line between the neo-fascists of the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging (AWB) and the more constitutionally-minded groupings led by General Constand Viljoen. Shortly after the Bophuthatswana debacle, Viljoen announced that he would contest the election at the head of a newly-created party, the Freedom Front. Since the Conservative Party. which since 1982 had been the main white opposition to the reform and then the abolition of apartheid, insisted on a boycott, Viljoen’s decision emphasised the divisions on the right.

With Bophuthatswana gone and the white right fractured, Buthelezi appeared more and more isolated. However, the IFP continued to hold out for terms which included stronger powers for the regions as the price for taking part in the elections. In an atmosphere of greatly increasing tension and escalating violence, it became clear that the holding of free and fair elections in KwaZulu and even Natal would be impossible without the IFP’s participation or at least acquiescence. On 31 March, the government and TEC ordered a state of emergency in Natal and KwaZulu. It is likely that this action had an exemplary effect on Buthelezi and the IFP, and on the 19 April, only one week before the election, Buthelezi agreed to take part in the election. The quid pro quo was a guarantee of the status and prerogatives of the Zulu monarchy, terms which had been on offer before and dismissed as inadequate. The entry of the IFP into the election brought an immedi- ate and very dramatic fall in the number of casualties from political violence. This fuelled suspicion that the violence in KwaZulu/Natal could be largely attributed to a deliberate anti-election strategy of the IFP.

The Parties

A total number of 19 parties contested the National Assembly elections. The numbers contesting those for the nine regional parliaments varied from region to region, but in each case the list was smaller than the national ballot.

The number of ‘national’ parties was swelled by publicity-conscious opportunists attracted by public funding for campaigns and the prospects of lucrative parliamentary salaries. Among these were the Sports Organisations for Collective Contributions and Equal Rights (the Soccer Party) and the Keep it Straight and Simple Party (KISS). Several remnants of the many parties which contested elections under the fragmented political system of the homelands and tricameral parliaments also increased the national list. Among these were the African Democratic Movement (Ciskei), the Dikwankwetla Party (QwaQwa) and the Minority Front,


personal vehicle of Durban Indian politician Amichand Rajbansi. A third category embraces minority interest parties like the Africa Muslim Party and the Luso-South African Party.

The main contenders for votes were as follows;

African National Congress

Founded in 1913 and forced to operate in underground and exile since its banning in 1960, the ANC was the principal centre of resistance to apartheid. Until its unbanning in 1990, it operated mainly through armed action, the diplomatic foster- ing of a broad-based anti-apartheid movement in the international community, and in South Africa itself, through underground structures and front organisations.

Crucial to the success of the ANC has been its character as an ‘umbrella’ movement, embracing the Tripartite Alliance of the ANC, the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) and the South African Communist Party. Latterly, the so-called ‘Civics’-community organisations which mobilised township resistance to apartheid in the 1980s-have been elevated to the status of alliance partners.

In an effort to be as representative as possible, the ANC made space on their lists for quotas of trade union, women and youth leaders. What was less predictable was opening the lists to conservative traditional leaders and politicians who had records of involvement with apartheid structures but could deliver votes for the ANC. In several regions this pragmatic approach caused discontent among ANC activists. The ANC was well-placed to capitalise on the liberation euphoria of what many commentators called a ‘Uhuru’ election. Attitude surveys showed that long-term allegiances and the liberation factor, rather than policy-driven choices determined the ANC’s support.

The ANC’s policies centred on its Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP), aimed at alleviating poverty and maldistribution in health, education, housing and all other social and economic areas affected by apartheid. Housing, electrification and public works are priorities in the RDP.

However, the ANC was at pains to emphasise its conversion from wholesale nationalisation and the command economy to a position which stressed macro- economic and fiscal responsibility in matters like the budget deficit and the role of the private sector. In this, of course, it was addressing the South African and international business community of investors, lenders and producers, rather than the electorate as such.

7;be National Party

Between the late 1970s and 1990, the National Party shed its character as a party of Afrikaner identity and advancement, in its effort to broaden the base of support for reform-apartheid. It came to rely heavily on English-speaking support (especially after the more exclusively Afrikaner Conservative Party broke away from it in 1982). It was only after de Klerk’s reforms deracialised politics after 1990 that it was able to open itself to all races. Indeed, for its own survival it was forced to do so.

In the run-up to the election, the NP based its appeal on the considerable popularity of F W de Klerk, and claimed for him the status of the destroyer of apartheid. A central theme was the protection of minority interests in the consti- tutional negotiations and the claim to be the most effective curb on any tendency

Notes on Recent Elections 91

of an ANC-dominated government to abuse power. In making these claims, the NP specifically targeted the Indian and Coloured minorities and their general fears of African nationalism, coupled with more specific concerns like the effect of affir- mative action programmes on their prospects.

The NP was concerned to promise action on housing, jobs and a revitalisation of the economy along the same lines as the ANC’s RDP, but expressing doubts about the scope and funding of the ANC’s plan.

The Inkatha Frwdorn Parted

In its late appeal to the electorate, the IFP combined a concern with Zulu ethnic&y and tradition-focussed latterly on the monarchy-with vigorously-expressed distrust and hostility towards the ANC. Anti-communism, free enterprise and federalism formed the core of the IFP’s policy dimension. This modemised discourse was somewhat overshadowed by the violent atavism of its emphasis on issues like the right to carry ‘cultural weapons’, and the territorial claims of the Zulu king to the entire extent of the Zulu kingdom as it existed in the first half of the 19th century.

The Freedom Front exemplifies above all the fissiparous nature of Afrikaner right wing politics. All right wing groupings claim territorial and political self-determination for Afrikaners, but no clarity or over-arching agreement exists either on the extent of an Afrikaner Volkstuat or the means used to pursue such a goal. In May 1993, initiatives taken by farmers’ bodies (notably the Agricultural IJnions of the Transvaal and the Orange Free State) and a group of retired police and military gener- als brought forth the Afrikaner Volksfront, led by General Constand Viljoen. This body seemed better able to advance Afrikaner interests than the Conservative Party, which had been unable to adapt to the demise of the white parliamentary system.

The Freedom Front, led by Viljoen, represents that portion of the Afrikaner Volksfront which sees participation rather than boycott as the way to achieve Afrikaner self-determination. This view constitutes its sole policy. To this end, as the price of its participation in the election, it negotiated an amendment to the interim constitution providing for a 20 member Volkstuat Council to be appointed after the election. The purpose of the Council (which met for the first time in mid-June) is the reconciliation of Afrikaner aspirations to self-determination with the political, economic and demographic realities of contemporary South Africa.

The Democratic Party was the main vehicle of liberal opposition to apartheid in the white parliamentary system before 1990. De Klerk’s reforms stole much of the DP’s ground from under it and left it with major problems in adapting to the altered terrain of negotiation and political competition. Under these conditions, the dominance of the NP and ANC left very little political space for smaller parties. As a partial compensation, the DP retained support in business circles and the major print media out of all proportion to its electoral base.

The DP’s policies reflected a concern for political liberties and the rights of the individual, married to a free enterprise economic agenda (privatisation, deregulation)


reminiscent of conservative parties in the first world. Its campaign was geared most specifically of all the parties to its self-assigned virtues as a strong opposition whose integrity could be trusted.

The Pun Africanist Congress

The PAC broke away from the ANC in 1959, disgruntled with the influence of whites and Indians (especially communists) in the liberation movement. For the next three decades it competed in exile with the ANC for resources and status, usually having to be content with second place. The PAC suffered much more seriously from the pathological conditions of exile (organisational shortcomings, internecine feuding, impotence within South Africa itself) than its rival. These things, compounded by chronic underfunding, continued to plague the PAC after its unbanning.

The PAC favoured a transition process which was more clearly a transfer of power to ‘the African majority’ than the negotiated settlement with confidence-building safeguards for the white minority which the ANC and the NP eventually reached. Its policies, especially on land redistribution reflected this radical Africanist position. A complicating factor for the PAC’s participation in electoral politics was the ill-defined relationship with its armed wing, the Azanian People’s Liberation Army, which carried out terrorist attacks against whites long after the ANC had abandoned the armed struggle.

7%~ African Christian Democmtic Purty

The African Christian Democratic Party sought a constituency among both black and white churchgoers, seeking to capitalise on South Africa’s high rates of membership of Christian churches, and to put ‘moral majority’ issues like abortion on the political agenda.

Results

See results table on p. 114. ?? The ANC won overall majorities in six out of the nine provincial legislatures. In

KwaZulu/Natal the IFP, and in the Western Cape the NP won overall majorities. In one province, Northern Cape, no party was the clear victor, but as the largest party, the ANC was able to take power.

?? The ANC’s 62.6% of votes for the National Assembly left it short of the two-thirds majority required for approval of the new constitution, without the support of other parties.

?? The election exposed the shortcomings of all existing population statistics and many authorities are convinced that the electorate was in fact rather larger than the projected figure of 21.5m.

?? Although the election was pronounced ‘substantially free and fair’ by international monitors and the Independent Electoral Commission, there is substantial evidence of widespread and serious electoral malpractice in KwaZulu/Natal. In addition, the organisational shortcomings of the IEC had a damaging effect on the credibility of South Africa’s new institutions, if not of the election itself.

South Africa's general election 27–29 April 1994

Documents

Transcript of South Africa's general election 27–29 April 1994