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Picture: 123RF
Picture: 123RF

Moeletsi Mbeki warns us of the danger of growing youth disenchantment with politics, and urges the introduction in SA of parliamentary constituencies (“Why politics is necessary in society”, January 30).

Constituencies would encourage much-needed political engagement, especially by our youth, and Mbeki reminds us that a system including constituencies was endorsed at Codesa. It was not implemented.

Now is the time to introduce constituencies — and what better model than the German system? There is no need to reinvent the wheel. The German system for the election of Bundestag members preserves perfect proportionality, but within a system of about 300 constituencies.

Candidates from the various German parties compete on a UK-style first-past-the-post constituency system. But Germany then diverges from the UK by topping up party members, to the extent that each party’s constituency members fall short of their party’s support on a separate list vote. 

This means the total of the Bundestag members after any election fluctuates considerably. But we could readily accommodate this fluctuation when we rebuild our House of Assembly.

The German system is one of the more straightforward of the EU parliamentary systems, which are mostly constructed on a proportional foundation. Adopting the German system in SA would comply with the constitution and the sound endorsement at Codesa.

The German top-up system would have the healthy political advantage of establishing a direct link between local constituency populations and their parliamentary representative, while preserving party proportionality.

Willem Cronje
Cape Town

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