Home

Low voter turnout to favour smaller parties in provincial legislatures

Reading Time: 2 minutes

Author: Nkoe A Montja

With the 88% of voting results already recorded, adding up to just over 14.1-million votes, it indicates possibly the lowest  voter turnout the country has ever seen since the inception of democracy. With a 62 – 65 percent turnout, the South African future would’ve been left in the hands of around 53% of eligible voters in the country.

This on its own shows a direct decrease in the number of voters since 1994. This leaving a question mark on the future of politics and democracy in the country.

The turnout is the determining factor for valid votes leading to the number of votes required for a party to receive a seat either in parliament or province.

Below is the 2014 tabular illustration of seat allocation per province as per the outcome of voter result in the provinces.

Due to the high turnout of voters in Gauteng, a party required 60 029 votes to have one seat in the legislature,  followed by the Western Cape at 50 503, Kwa Zulu Natal at 47 950 and Mpumalanga at 44 542. For the Northern Cape the required number of votes was 14 081 making it easier for the smaller parties in that legislature.

The tabled statistics above will see a decrease as there seem to be a decrease in the number of voter turnout in the current election. This could favour a number of smaller parties looking to enter the provincial legislature.

*Nkoe A Montja is a research analyst at Mapungubwe Institute for Strategic Reflection

Author

MOST READ