South Afric A Strong Foundation For Their Emerging Democratic Constitution

We know that democracies are common among the economically urbanized countries and rare between the very deprived ones. The reason we scrutinize this pattern is not that democracies are more probable to emerge, as a result, of economic development but that they are to a large extent more possible to survive if they occur to emerge in most urbanized countries. The paths to democracy are diverse. Indeed, they appear to follow no unsurprising pattern. But once democracy is conventional, for whatever reasons, its endurance depends on a few, easily particular, factors.

There are two types of democracies, direct democracy and representative democracy. As one would expect, the two are very similar. Direct democracy and representative democracy are both systems of government in which power lies with the people whom are govern though the power of voting. The power of voting is how both systems emphasis the importance of people’s rights. There is also a common sense of self-empowerment to the people being govern in both types of government due to this right. Furthermore, there is a mutual prominence towards majority rule in the two systems.

In this essay I will assess the outcomes of Additional Member system, First Past the Post system and the Closed Party List system. The F-P-T-P system is used to elect the members of House of Commons and local government in England and Wales. Voters select candidates, and do so by marking his or her name with an ‘X’ on the ballot paper. This reflects the principle of ‘one person, one vote’. The Additional Members system is used in Scottish parliament, Welsh assembly, and Northern Ireland Assembly and Greater London assembly. It is a mixed system made up of F-P-T-P and party-list elements. The Regional party list (or the closed party list) is used to elect the

As the anti-apartheid struggle ramped up in South Africa in the 1980s, the Kagiso Trust was formed as a NGO to support the struggle against apartheid and to distribute funds from the European Union and other donors. This was to provide the uplifting and empowerment of disadvantaged communities in South Africa through various development initiatives. At this stage, the core focus of the Kagiso Trust was on “building partnerships and collaborations to strengthen the implementation capacity of people and organisations in development”[1]. Following South Africa’s transition into democracy in 1994, the Kagiso Trust refocused its goals and efforts on education [1], which is considered a critical component in the eradication of inequality.

The most important issue in relation to the Canadian electoral process is the debate over whether or not the state should implement electoral reform for federal elections. It is my stance that replacing the Single Member Plurality system (SMP) with the Mixed Member Proportional (MMP) is undeniably in the best interest of Canadians, and I will attempt to prove this by contrasting The Limits: Electoral Systems and Electoral Reform - Or How I Came to Love SMP by Christopher Kam, who believes in the current SMP system, and Getting What You Vote For by John Hiemstra, who pushes for a change in favour of the MMP system. This paper will conclude with further critical analysis, as well as my justified stance the MMP system is clearly superior.

Although the contents of the Somewhereland constitution are generally well-structured, there are several clauses that will cause us some grief down the road, E.G. “everybody feels that they have somebody that represents them.” This clause is an obvious blunder, simply because it is impossible for every person to feel that somebody represents them adequately. The balance of democracy is essential to national longevity, and it would be easily achieved if the upper house elections clause was passed. The state, not the populace, should choose its upper members. The parliament should reflect the people, but an upper section of parliament should be chosen by those with understanding and specialized education. This system does not denigrate the intelligence of citizens, but acknowledges that not every citizen has spent his/her entire life studying government and law. That lack of balance within our parliament may lead to future corruption and political instability.

It can vary between models, just as a plurality model may, however most models have voters cast two votes, one vote for the party and one for the riding representative. The focus of this essay will be more on the New Zealand variation of the Mixed Member Proportional System, which works as such:

The results of recent elections in Britain raised many significant questions about current political situation in the country, particularly concerning electoral system. Therefore the problem of “crisis” in democracy of Britain was the subject of wide speculation among analysts and political scientists over last years. In addition it is widely recognized that the traditional electoral system in the UK-first past the post- is the main cause of that crisis and should be replaced as part of a plan to reconstitute the democratic culture (Kelly 2008). By longstanding critics of the system, opponents advocate the use of proportional representation (PR) for selecting MPs. Due to this problem it is going to be a referendum on changing the electoral

The election’s education shortage to several Africans brings about no sense for their voice to be heard and registering their opinions on how they think the government should operate. Yet witnessing lost of this privilege to vote, some believe it cannot bring about change.

For the overall comparison, the strength of Multimember districts falls more on effectiveness of reflecting administrative divisions because there is a flexibility to the numbers of representatives. However, as reviewing to the strengths of single-member districts, it rests in the close ties between representatives and constituents, the accountability of representatives to the voters, and constituency service. Based on the overall comparison, the conclusion is that there is no single ‘best’ system. However, if only to choose the electoral systems that best allot parliamentary seats to reflect the votes cast by the electors will be the Mixed Member Proportional system.

The first past the post system also known as the single - member plurality system is a classification in which the country is divided into districts. This system is quite successful as it allows the winner to obtain a majority in parliament. The candidate gains a parliamentary seat by finishing first in a single district. This reform would not achieve the desired effect of reducing the disintegration of the party landscape. This is because, despite its antiquity and simplicity, the first past the post system is becoming less common as it is possible that the party with the most votes may not win the election. Thus, it focuses enormous power in the hands of one party that might only represent 20% of the electorate. It is mainly used in Britain

Democracy is an important fundamental aspect of changing the electoral system. In Ontario, the provincial governments called a referendum after poorly educating the masses on electoral reform. Many electoral systems were mentioned but the majority believed that MMP (mixed-member) could be easily implemented. The author suggests that electoral reform often fails in Canada because of the many problems that arise: negative media portrayal of electoral reform, an uneducated mass (on the topic of electoral systems), and diminishing government enthusiasm. The article states why electoral reform in Canada fails and why democracy needs to play an important role in the development of an electoral system that represents every Canadian citizens viewpoint.

For decades, Canadians have been defending their right to have a fair and open electoral system. Since its creation in 1867, Canada has been proud to call itself a true democratic country, but today there would be many people who disagree with this statement. The Canadian electoral system, which uses First Past The Post (FPTP), has come under scrutiny for not being as fair as it claims to be. Over the past couple of decades, many countries have switched their system to Proportional Representation (PR) or some form of it. Based on successful results in other nations, Canada’s current FPTP system should change to Mixed Member Proportional (MMP), which is a form of Proportional Representation, as it will allow for more fair elections. The intent of this paper is to outline how an electoral reform from First Past the Post to Proportional Representation or Mixed-Member Proportional, will lead to more confidence in the government, more accurate seat-vote percentage, and better overall representation of the population.

Since the initiation of the Third Wave of Democracy, several countries have attempted to form a democratic system of governs. We take note that not all have succeeded. At the dawn of this era, democracy was being applied to countries with no prior history of a governing body that was place by the people for the people hence success of such a system could not be guaranteed because of the innumerous variables that existed in each country. People being the highlighted factor of variance, it may become easier to understand how countries such as Pakistan and Nigeria, both countries prior to the Wave had no local governing machinery. Pakistan further endured a partition from India which resulted in not only an instant religious and

The New Zealand government at both a Local and National level is an excellent example of a modern, Representative Democracy. Different election systems, including First Past the Post (FPP), Mixed Member Proportional (MMP) and Single Transferable Vote (STV), are used to allow electors to select representatives to sit on Councils, Boards and in Parliament. Some elements of Constitutional Monarchy are present in the New Zealand system of democratically elected representatives within a constitutional Monarchy contrasts well with the dictatorship of Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe.