South Africa: Constitutional Assembly Resources

15 June 1995

ELECTORAL SYSTEM : PROPOSAL FOR A MIXED SYSTEM OF PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION AND CONSTITUENCY-BASED MP's

I would like to propose a mixed system in which the available party-list seats are allocated to the various parties in such a way that the total number of MP's (constituency and list) for each party is proportional to the total number of votes cast for that party. This gives the advantages of the constituency system while still having a representative assembly.

The following is an example of how it would work. The example is based on 200 constituency MP's and 100 party-list MP’s.


Party % of No. of MP's Total number of Therefore
total elected on a MP's the party number of MP's
vote constituency should have to be drawn
basis for correct from this
proportionality party's list
(total 200) (total 300) (total 100)

A 45 100 135 35
B 35 75 30
c 15 20 45 25
D 4 5 12 7
E 1 0 3 3

A difficult issue in a mixed system is whether:

(i) To base proportionality on the total number of votes cast for each party in those constituencies which each actually contests. This has the drawback of disadvantaging smaller parties who do not have the resources to contest all seats.

Or (ii) To use two ballot papers, one for the constituency election, and one for the proportional representation component. This is fairer, but makes the election more complicated.

Charles Dingley