Proportional Representation

Most experts on divided societies agree that deep societal cleavages pose a grave problem for democracy. (1) Arend Lijphart saw the establishment of power sharing and group autonomy in divided societies as the only route for inter-ethnic accommodation(2). Proportional Representation (PR) is one of his fundamental pillar of power-sharing that assures the participation of representatives of all significant communal groups in political decision making; especially at the executive level. PR is a principle of awarding to each group of voters its ‘fair share’ of representation in the legislature-or, in other words, of allocating 10 each party the same share of seats as it won of the votes (3). There are various methods of awarding seats proportionally.

(5) The country’s parliament was divided into two chambers: a directly elected House of Assembly and an indirectly elected Senate. Never the less, elections were restricted only to white men. This gave South Africa’s white minority-which accounted less than 25% of the whole population-a complete political control over the country. In 1994, South Africa witnessed a critical juncture. At midnight on 27 April 1994, South Africa adopted a multiparty democracy thus ending its 300 year authoritative rule (6). New parties emerged to complete with the old ‘white right’ parties. Nelson Mandela’s African Congress (ANC), the Pan-Africanist Congress of Azania (PAC), Mongosotho Buthelezi Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) challenged the old constitutional dispensations: F.W.De Klerk’s National Party (NP), the liberal Democratic Party (DP) and the New Freedom Front (FF).

Elections were conducted under list PR. The lists are closed so voters cannot alter the order of such lists or choose individual candidates. The National Assembly is made up of 400 members of which 200 members are chosen from nine different provincial lists and the other 200 being elected from a single national list. There is no formal Threshold for

Brazil, a Federative Republic, uses an open list d’Hondt PR to elect federal and state deputies for the 26 states. Each state consists of legislative, executive and judicial branches.

Brazil’s legislative body is bicameral compromised of Chamber of Deputies and the Federal Senate. The Chamber of Deputies constitutes 513 members directly elected by proportional representation in each state and the Federal District (13). Each Federal District is an electoral constituency. Voters can vote their favored candidate within the party. The number of seats received by each party is determined by the total number of votes gained by its candidates. The order in which the party’s candidates are elected is determined by the number of individual votes they receive (14).

The federal senate consists of 81 members who are also directly elected for an eight-year term. Each state and the federal District chooses three senators by utilizing simple plurality system. The executive power on the other hand, is exercised by the President of the Republic which is directly elected for a term of four