South Africa: Democratic Elections

Extracted from: LODGE, T 2002, "South Africa" IN Compendium of Elections in Southern Africa (2002), edited by Tom Lodge, Denis Kadima and David Pottie, EISA, 296-297.

In the April 1994 general elections, the ANC won 252 seats in the National Assembly after obtaining a 62.65% share of the vote (see 1994 National Assembly results). Altogether, more than 19.5 million people voted through an extremely liberal dispensation which accorded the ballot to all permanent residents and citizens. Six other parties won national representation in the 400 hundred member House of Assembly: the National Party (82 seats), the Inkatha Federal Party, the former governing party of the KwaZulu homeland (43 seats), the Freedom Front, a new Afrikaner "self determinist" group (9 seats), the Democratic (formerly Progressive) Party (7 seats), the Pan-Africanist Congress (5 seats) and the African Christian Democratic Party (2 seats). The ANC won seven out of the 9 regional elections but had to concede executive majorities to the National Party in the Western Cape and to Inkatha in KwaZulu Natal (see 1994 Provincial Legislature Results for details). In the Western Cape, the National Party succeeded in winning a majority of coloured votes. National Party and Inkatha politicians held office with ANC ministers in a Government of National Unity until the National Party's withdrawal from the coalition in 1996. The National Party's abdication was prompted by its leaders' perception that they had failed to influence government policy. In particular they were displeased with their inability to secure permanent power-sharing arrangements in the 1996 Constitution.

The second general elections were held in June 1999. In comparison to the 1994 elections, the franchise was confined to citizens and furthermore restricted to those in possession of modern identity documents with bar-coded computer numbers. As a consequence participation was considerably lower; nearly 16 million voters represented a turn out of 68% of the voting age population. The ANC again obtained a large majority, with its 66,36% of the vote bringing it just short of the two-thirds share it would need to unilaterally alter the Constitution (see 1999 National Assembly votes and seats by party for more details). In this second Parliament, opposition representation was divided between 12 parties, of which the Democrats with their 38 seats had leading status. Inkatha retained its Cabinet representation in a voluntary coalition with the ANC and once again dominated the executive in the KwaZulu Natal regional administration. The Western Cape remained under National Party control, with Democrats as junior partners, in a coalition necessitated by the failure of any party to win an outright majority.