Political paralysis — SA’s best bet may be to muddle through the middle ground

Last week, the Electoral Reform Consultation Panel held a conference to hear different views about what kind of voting system we should use.

The idea of a major change to our voting system has been publicly discussed for at least the past 20 years.

For some people, it is about trying to ensure more accountability by MPs to voters (and thus moving to a constituency system, as in the UK). 

For others, it is about allowing individuals to contest as candidates without the need to form political parties first.

While there are big arguments here, it may be important to also try to examine what the outcomes of different systems might be.

Toxic US politics

In the US right now, one reason that their politics has become so toxic is because there is a system of winners and losers. Currently, the Republicans have control over all three parts of government, the House of Representatives, the Senate and the Presidency.

And because of the country’s idiotic system of appointing judges to the Supreme Court (and particularly that appointments are for life), there is no check on their political power).

The result is that each election, whether it be for a judicial post, the Presidency or whatever, becomes hugely divisive. The US system also has the peculiarity of giving voters in rural states a disproportionate voice, rendering the system unfair (this is why someone can be elected President while losing the popular vote).

Of course, you can’t just blame an electoral system for the outcomes of elections.

The US situation is the result of a deliberate strategy by political operatives on all sides, who have looked for wedge issues to divide people (the ultimate issue in the US has been abortion).

The introduction of social media, closed WhatsApp groups and other echo chambers have all played important roles, too.

One should not forget that this has happened over many years, perhaps even going back to what was called the “Southern strategy” in the US from 1968.

SA’s political landscape

The South African situation is very different.

While our society is economically and socially much more unequal and thus divided than the US, the outcome of last year’s elections was to give power to the two parties with the most diverse support.

This is despite the fact that we also have divisive politicians, social media campaigns and many, many reasons for people to feel frustrated.

Among the reasons for the outcome of last year’s elections may be our political system, and in particular the use of proportional representation.

As Professor Anthony Butler observed as long ago as 2013, our current system encourages parties to work towards the middle. In short, if any one party wants to have a hope of winning elections, they need to aim for the moderate middle ground.

This is among the reasons that the ANC and the DA won so many votes compared with other parties – they simply represent more groups of people than parties that represent only an ethnic or religious identity.

Considering the nature of our society, we abandon this at our peril. 

While there are many issues to consider, surely looking for a system that encourages parties to seek the middle ground should be a priority. The alternatives could lead to more division.

That said, there are some attractions for a winner-takes-all system. 

It can mean that big political problems can be solved, because a party, or a coalition of parties that all lean the same way, can actually make changes.

This can be very positive. For example, in the first term of Tony Blair’s Labour Party in the UK from 1997, a huge set of necessary reforms was introduced. That led to stronger economic growth in that country for some time.

But US President Donald Trump also has a majority in the US and is now using it.

This means that there are both strong positives and strong negatives. If you support Trump, you might celebrate the system. But you might then want a change in the system if the Democrats won all of the next elections.

Middle ground

While it is not possible to predict what will happen in South African politics, it seems very likely that the process of political fracturing will continue.

In other words, there will be more support for yet more smaller parties.

This means that any system needs to take this into account, and perhaps try to keep our politics in the middle.

This is essentially what the current system does. And while it has led to the two most diverse parties working together, it has also led to the current political dysfunction around the national Budget.

This means that the negative of the system is that it can lead to this type of situation, where nothing is done (it could even be argued that the reason the ANC has been so slow to even try to resolve our problems over the past few years has been because it has so many diverse interests).

Of course, there may be systems that mean we do not have to make a binary choice. 

These could include a mixture of accountability for directly elected MPs and some form of proportional representation. And some of these systems might find a middle ground between these two systems.

However, the risk of these systems is that they are very complicated. And if voters find that a system is difficult to understand, they might feel that it is illegitimate. There is a strong argument that the simpler the system, the better.

This is particularly important in an era when more parties are likely to dispute the outcomes of elections.

In the end, there will always be problems with a voting system; none is perfect.

But for South Africa, as it is currently, with such high levels of inequality, the best system might be one that brings us together.

In other words, it might be better to muddle through the middle, than to allow the winners to take it all. DM