South Africa: Constitution of the Republic, Act 200 of 1993

Updated October 1998

The Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, Act 200 was passed in 1993 as an interim constitution, and replaced by the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, Act 108 of 1996 (See Constitutional provisions and Constitution for details).

This Act provided a bold point of departure from existing South African constitutional law in terms of voting and the electoral system.

Fundamentally, section 6 afforded universal adult suffrage to all South African citizens, and Chapter 3 contained a Bill of Fundamental Rights which protects a citizen's right to vote.

Sections 40 and 127 (and Schedule 2) of the Constitution provide for the members of the National Assembly and nine provincial legislatures to be elected in accordance with a system of proportional representation. Previous elections in South Africa were conducted under a plurality-majority system, whose distinguishing feature is the use of single-member districts.

The Constitution provided for the nine new provincial boundaries.