THE SOUTH AFRICAN GENERAL ELECTION, APRIL 1994: RESULTS, ANALYSIS AND IMPLICATIONS

Abstract

THIS ARTICLE EXPLORES three dimensions of South Africa s liberation election: the social identity of party support; the motivations underlying voter choice; and the implications of the results for the future course of South African politics. In April 1994 South Africa voters elected a government in which majoritarian power would be confined by an interim constitution. Its prescriptions included a national assembly and nine regional parliaments elected under a simple list system of proportional representation, national and provincial cabinets composed proportionately by all parties with at least five per cent of the vote, provincial powers subject to the sanction of central government, and the national legislature subject to the authority of a constitutional court and a Bill of Rights. The interim constitution would be replaced by a final version negotiated by a Constitutional Assembly composed of the National Assembly and the Senate, a body representing regions in the national parliament. The most important clauses of the new constitution would be settled by a two thirds majority and should express the spirit of the agreements reached at the multi-party negotiations conducted in the two years preceding the elections. The elections themselves would be supervized by a specially constituted Independent Electoral Commission (IEC). Negotiations continued until the eve of the elections when irredentist Zulus and Afrikaners in the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) and the Freedom Front respectively were induced to participate. In return the National Party (NP) and the African National Congress (ANC) promised international mediation to help determine the status of the Zulu monarchy and the establishment of a 'Volkstaatraad' to recommend an institutional framework for Afrikaner self-determination.