PICTURE: THEMBINKOSI DWAYISA One of the most damaging but least talked-about features of SA’s post-apartheid political dispensation is the crisis of representation we are experiencing under the electoral system of closed-list proportional representation. Within this system, voters not only elect MPs to the National Assembly, but in doing so, empower MPs as our proxies indirectly to elect the president of the republic.The origins of the decision to go with a proportional representation system in SA are noble enough: proportionality was built into the Constitution as a means of securing the rights of minority groups and ensuring that elections would never again constitute a parliament made up of MPs from only a single racial or ethnic group.That principle is built into Section 46, which circumscribes the rules for the composition and election of MPs to the Assembly. The unintended consequence, however, is that the system has sublimated Parliament’s powers beneath the weight of decisio...
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