The panel appointed to make recommendations on how to get the best out of the ballot box is split almost down the middle on the way forward.
A nine-member electoral reform panel was appointed in May 2024 to analyse South Africa’s election processes and advise on how fairer outcomes could be achieved in electing the national and provincial assemblies.
An initial report was submitted to Home Affairs Minister Leon Schreiber in September 2025, but several delays led to a two-part presentation to a multi-departmental parliamentary committee on Tuesday.
The panel was split into two camps representing alternate ideas, with five members authoring the majority report and four members agreeing on the minority report.
“After deliberation within the panel, and our discussions, we could not really agree on the content of all the chapters and on the content of how we do our recommendations,” stated Advocate Richard Sizani in his opening remarks.
Over half apathetic to democracy
Sizani fell into the minority camp, alongside Dr Albertus Schoeman, Mmatsie Mooki and Tomsie Dlamini.
The five members making up the majority view were Pansy Tlakula, Dr Michael Sutcliffe, Sy Mamabolo, Michael Hendrikse and Norman du Plessis.
Stats shown in the minority report showed that the need for electoral reform was driven by growing voter apathy and a disconnect between politicians and their constituencies.
Sizani and company’s report showed that only 28% of voters surveyed believed the current system allowed for voters to effectively remove poor-performing leaders.
Additionally, only 31% of voters believed the current system adequately reflected the views of voters, with South Africa ranked 155 out of 170 for eligible voter turnout.
“53% of South Africans now believe that it doesn’t matter what system we have or that non-democratic systems are sometimes preferable.
“The overwhelming majority of South Africans are unhappy with the electoral system, and this came out strongly in public consultations,” the minority report read.
The overwhelming majority of public submissions declared a preference for constituency-based elections, similar to the voting system seen during local government elections.
“One of the points they made quite clearly was that some of the people who are chosen by political parties in this closed-list system and proportional list system, even if it is two-tier, is that they are not people of quality.”
“Some of those people, you don’t know how they reach parliament,” said Sizani.
He stressed that this was the sentiment of public consultations and not the panel’s opinion, but cited that their mandate was to engage with the public.
“It was clear that the public wants a closer relationship with their representatives and wants more say in directly choosing their leaders,” Sizani said.
Differences in reports
Legislation mandates that parliamentary seats may not exceed 400 members, with both reports presenting options on the fairest way to split those 400 seats.
Sizani explained the panel also did not consider options that would prolong elections over several days, citing security, logistical and financial challenges.
The majority report stated that the current system had a slight bias in favour of smaller parties, but stressed that it still “produces one of the most proportional outcomes” compared with other countries.
Several alternatives were presented, including limiting seat allocation to the top 11 parties provincially and the top 15 parties nationally.
A second option provided was to split the nine provinces into 41 smaller constituencies, with variations in seat allocation by constituency and compensatory seats.
The final option in the majority report would entail 200 single-member constituency blocks, divided among provinces according to the current proportional split seen in the regional ballot, plus the 200 further compensatory seats.
Among the minority report’s alternatives were 300 small, multi-member constituencies plus 100 seats based on the national total of votes.
One of the minority report’s more supported options was splitting the country into 200 constituencies based on population size, allocating one seat per constituency, and then dividing the 200 seats based on national party votes.
However, this option was deemed to have a high “level of complexity” and would require new constituency boundaries every national election cycle to reflect population changes.
Ensuring accountability key
The minority report argued that larger constituencies led to a greater disconnect between leaders and said making constituencies – demarcated voting areas – smaller would have little effect on the overall results.
A problem with the current system, cited by the majority report, was “overhang” – a phenomenon in which vote percentages and seat allocation are not perfectly aligned.
Sizani accused the majority of panellists of using a flawed formula to calculate the overhang, stating the issue of overhang was a “bogeyman”.
The EFF’s Asansa Matshobeni questioned the methodology of the reports and the contentious issue of demarcation, highlighting challenges perpetuated by communication divides and information dissemination.
“The challenge we are facing with the demarcation process is that many of our communities, especially those in rural areas, are often left behind,” said Matshobeni.
Member of the minority, Tomsie Dlamini, answered that the panel was aided by provincial governments in spreading engagements equally between rural and urban areas.
The DA’s Adrian Roos highlighted the prominence of the word “accountability” in the joint report, stating that “trade-offs” needed to be found.
“The panel being split shows that this is not an easy process with a magic wand. Law reform needs to resolve some mischief in the existing law.
“Part of the issue at the moment is [that] accountability is not 100% crystal clear, so that you can design a system whereby you can hold public representatives accountable,” said Roos.
