South African general election, 2009
Encyclopedia
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
held national and provincial elections to elect a new National Assembly as well as the provincial legislature in each province on 22 April 2009.
The National Assembly consists of 400 members elected by proportional representation
Proportional representation
Proportional representation is a concept in voting systems used to elect an assembly or council. PR means that the number of seats won by a party or group of candidates is proportionate to the number of votes received. For example, under a PR voting system if 30% of voters support a particular...
with a closed list
Closed list
Closed list describes the variant of party-list proportional representation where voters can only vote for political parties as a whole and thus have no influence on the party-supplied order in which party candidates are elected...
approach. Two hundred members are elected from national party lists; the other 200 are elected from provincial party lists in each of the nine provinces
Provinces of South Africa
South Africa is currently divided into nine provinces. On the eve of the 1994 general election, South Africa's former homelands, also known as Bantustans, were reintegrated and the four existing provinces were divided into nine. The twelfth, thirteenth and sixteenth amendments to the constitution...
. The President of South Africa
President of South Africa
The President of the Republic of South Africa is the head of state and head of government under South Africa's Constitution. From 1961 to 1994, the head of state was called the State President....
is chosen by the National Assembly after each election; in 2009, the presidential election
South African presidential election, 2009
An indirect presidential election was held in South Africa on 6 May 2009 following the general election on 22 April 2009. Jacob Zuma of the ruling African National Congress won the election with 277 votes , while Mvume Dandala of the Congress of the People got 47 votes...
was on 6 May. The premiers of each province are chosen by the winning majority in each provincial legislature.
This was the fourth general election held since the end of the apartheid era.
The Pretoria High Court ruled on 9 February 2009 that South African citizens living abroad should be allowed to vote in elections. The judgment was confirmed by the Constitutional Court
Constitutional Court of South Africa
The Constitutional Court of South Africa was established in 1994 by South Africa's first democratic constitution: the Interim Constitution of 1993. In terms of the 1996 Constitution the Constitutional Court established in 1994 continues to hold office. The court began its first sessions in February...
on 12 March 2009, when it decided that overseas voters who were already registered would be allowed to vote. Also, registered voters who found themselves outside their registered voting districts on election day were permitted to vote for the national ballot at any voting station in South Africa.
African National Congress – ruling party
The African National CongressAfrican National Congress
The African National Congress is South Africa's governing Africanist political party, supported by its tripartite alliance with the Congress of South African Trade Unions and the South African Communist Party , since the establishment of non-racial democracy in April 1994. It defines itself as a...
was the ruling party in parliament going into the 2009 elections, having won 69.69% of the vote at the 2004 elections. During its term in office a number of internal changes occurred, the primary one being the election of Jacob Zuma
Jacob Zuma
Jacob Gedleyihlekisa Zuma is the President of South Africa, elected by parliament following his party's victory in the 2009 general election....
to the party presidency ahead of Thabo Mbeki
Thabo Mbeki
Thabo Mvuyelwa Mbeki is a South African politician who served two terms as the second post-apartheid President of South Africa from 14 June 1999 to 24 September 2008. He is also the brother of Moeletsi Mbeki...
at the 52nd National Conference of the African National Congress
52nd National Conference of the African National Congress
The 52nd National Conference of the African National Congress was held in Polokwane, Limpopo from December 16 to December 20, 2007. It elected Jacob Zuma and supporters to the party's top leadership and National Executive Committee , representing a significant defeat for Thabo Mbeki, then the...
held on 18 December 2007. Zuma's victory in the election was partly due to the wide degree of support for him from the ANC Youth League
African National Congress Youth League
The African National Congress Youth League is the youth wing of the African National Congress.-Foundation:Its foundation in 1944 by Nick Gombart, Ashley Peter Mda, Nelson Mandela, Walter Sisulu and Oliver Tambo marked the rise of a new generation of leadership of South Africa's black African...
, the South African Communist Party
South African Communist Party
South African Communist Party is a political party in South Africa. It was founded in 1921 as the Communist Party of South Africa by the joining together of the International Socialist League and others under the leadership of Willam H...
and the Congress of South African Trade Unions
Congress of South African Trade Unions
The Congress of South African Trade Unions is a trade union federation in South Africa. It was founded in 1985 and is the biggest of the country’s three main trade union federations, with 21 affiliated trade unions, altogether organising 1.8 million workers.-Establishment:COSATU was established in...
.
Subsequent to this, in 2008 Zuma's ongoing corruption trial in relation to a multi-billion Rand arms deal was dismissed by the courts, which insinuated that Mbeki had unduly influenced the investigation into Zuma. In light of the court's findings, the ANC's National Executive Committee
National Executive Committee (African National Congress)
The ANC National Executive Committee is the chief executive organ of the South African political party, the African National Congress. It is elected at every National Conference; the executive committee, in turn, elects a National Working Committee for day-to-day decision-making responsibilities.On...
asked Mbeki to resign as president of the country
President of South Africa
The President of the Republic of South Africa is the head of state and head of government under South Africa's Constitution. From 1961 to 1994, the head of state was called the State President....
, which he duly did on 20 September 2008.
Mbeki was replaced by Kgalema Motlanthe, who had been elected as ANC deputy president at the 2007 conference. Motlanthe was not the presidential candidate of the ANC for the 2009 general election, but rather the current President of the ANC, Jacob Zuma
Jacob Zuma
Jacob Gedleyihlekisa Zuma is the President of South Africa, elected by parliament following his party's victory in the 2009 general election....
. The ANC's electoral list was led by Zuma, followed by Motlanthe, Deputy President of South Africa
Deputy President of South Africa
The Deputy President of South Africa is the acting President of South Africa when the President is outside the country's borders, unable to fulfill the duties of the office, or when the Presidency is vacant. The Deputy President is also a member of the National Assembly and the Cabinet...
Baleka Mbete
Baleka Mbete
Baleka Mbete is the former Deputy President of South Africa. She was previously Speaker of the National Assembly of South Africa from 2004 to 2008....
, finance minister Trevor Manuel
Trevor Manuel
Trevor Andrew Manuel is a South African politician, currently serving in the Cabinet of South Africa as Minister in the Presidency in charge of the National Planning Commission...
and Winnie Mandela, former wife of Nelson Mandela
Nelson Mandela
Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela served as President of South Africa from 1994 to 1999, and was the first South African president to be elected in a fully representative democratic election. Before his presidency, Mandela was an anti-apartheid activist, and the leader of Umkhonto we Sizwe, the armed wing...
.
The recall of Mbeki, amongst other issues, created severe tensions and splits within the party, and eventually led to the formation of the Congress of the People, a new political party formed by former ANC members. Nevertheless, most pre-poll predictions gave the ANC between sixty and seventy per cent of the popular vote; even the lowest prediction, giving the ANC 47 per cent, still rendered it comfortably South Africa's most favoured political party.
Election boycott
A number of communities, organisations, social movements and well-known personalities threatened not to vote in the 2009 elections. The most well-known personality was Archbishop Desmond Tutu who at first said he would not vote but then changed his mind. South Africa's Poor People's AlliancePoor People's Alliance
The Poor People's Alliance is a network of radical grassroots movements in South Africa. It was formed in 2008 after the Action Alliance, formed in December 2006, was expanded to include two more organisations....
, the Anti-Privatisation Forum
Anti-Privatisation Forum
The Anti-Privatisation Forum was established in July 2000 by activists and organisations involved in two key anti-privatisation struggles: the struggle against iGoli 2002 in Johannesburg, and the struggle against Wits 2001 at Wits University...
, NOPE, and the independent farmworkers' union Sikhula Sonke resolved to boycott the election under the banner No Land! No House! No Vote!
No Land! No House! No Vote!
No Land! No House! No Vote! is the name of a campaign by a number of poor people's movements in South Africa that calls for the boycotting of the vote and a general rejection of party politics and vote banking...
.
Results
Constitution of South Africa
The Constitution of South Africa is the supreme law of the country of South Africa. It provides the legal foundation for the existence of the republic, sets out the rights and duties of its citizens, and defines the structure of the government. The current constitution, the country's fifth, was...
.
Some 23-million people were registered for the 2009 general elections, which was about 2.5 million more than in 2004
South African general election, 2004
Legislative elections were held in South Africa on Wednesday, 14 April 2004. The African National Congress of President Thabo Mbeki, which came to power after the end of the apartheid system in 1994, was re-elected with an increased majority....
. About 76% of registered voters took part in the election, with the ANC receiving 65.90% of the votes cast. About 12-million people eligible to vote either did not register to vote (about 7-million), or did register but did not vote (5.4 million). In this election, there was a slight decrease in voter abstention though there was at least one high-profile election and registration boycotts campaign, the No Land! No House! No Vote! Campaign.
The Independent Electoral Commission
Independent Electoral Commission (South Africa)
The Independent Electoral Commission is South Africa's independent election management body. It manages elections to the National Assembly, the provincial legislatures and the municipal councils....
made results available on their website as they were received from voting districts, filtered by national, provincial, municipality, and voting district.
Provincial legislature results
The following table summarises the results of the elections to the provincial legislaturesProvincial legislature (South Africa)
In South Africa, a provincial legislature is the legislative branch of the government of a province. The provincial legislatures are unicameral and vary in size from 30 to 80 members depending on the population of the province...
. The majority party in each province is indicated in bold.
NCOP seats
The National Council of ProvincesNational Council of Provinces
The National Council of Provinces is the upper house of the Parliament of South Africa under the constitution which came into full effect in 1997...
(NCOP) consists of 90 members, ten elected by each provincial legislature. The Members of NCOP have to be elected in proportion to the party membership of the provincial legislature.
See also
- List of political parties in South Africa
- South African municipal election, 2011
- 25th South African Parliament25th South African ParliamentThe 25th South African Parliament is the fourth Parliament of South Africa to convene since the introduction of multiracial government in South Africa in 1994. It was elected in the general election of 22 April 2009, and first met on 6 May of that year to elect Jacob Zuma as the fourth President of...