Law expert questions number of political parties | EWN Elections - EWN

`Firstly, the problem with having 100 parties competing in the election is voters really do not know who these parties are,' said Pierre de Vos.

The Municipal Structures Amendment Bill, also known as the Coalition Bill, is a proposed piece of legislation that hopes to make councils stable and sustainable.

Cape Talk’s Lester Kiewit spoke to Pierre de Vos, a Constitutional law expert. He's been writing in News24, saying that it's not necessarily the laws or the Constitution that's the problem, but the political parties themselves.

De Vos said in the South African context, there's the problem that coalitions have to be concluded within 14 days after the election results are declared. “Because that is when the mayor or the premier or the president must be elected. And that's very little time.”

He said additionally, the coalitions that are then formed are not formed around actual policies and a programme of action.

“It's formed around positions within that government. And that comes back to the parties, which I argue: many parties are not actually fulfilling their function of political parties because they're not coherent. They don't necessarily have clearly worked out policies or set of core values. They don't operate in a relatively democratic manner. And you cannot, especially the very small parties, it's very difficult to trust that what they said they are actually going to do.”

De Vos said they have very little input from their own members. “It's usually driven by one person at the top.”

He added that the kind of electoral system South Africa has now is extremely fair in the sense that it is absolutely proportional.

“As long as you receive enough votes to get one seat, you're going to be proportionally represented. If you're a very small party, you're probably going to get, because of some complicated formula, a second seat without actually having sufficient votes. But it's very fair.

“It helps with diversity of the representatives in terms of gender and all other things and so forth.”

But De Vos said electoral systems are not only about fairness, it is also about giving voters a real choice and ensuring that the government is stable.

“Firstly, the problem with having 100 parties competing in the election is voters really do not know who these parties are. It becomes very difficult for them to make decisions. Most people are not like you or me who follows the news and maybe even read some of the party's election manifestos. And so it dissuades people from participating because they're just overwhelmed by all of this.”

De Vos also said that the smaller parties then if they do get in, it's the problem because many of them don't have a coherent policy program.

“So they can jump from one side to the other and it is inherently unstable. So you must find a balance.

“I argue that you have to find a balance where all the major interest groups in society have parties to vote for. But where the system discourages the participation of so many parties that it becomes a bit absurd. Where you have 50 or 100 parties participating and you have 20 parties represented in a legislature, many of them with one or two seats."

To listen to the full interview, click the media player above.