Small parties are at risk

Brett Anderson Somerset West

Johnny Steinberg is the first commentator to expose the “wishful fantasy” that replacing our national and provincial proportional representation (PR) electoral system with the mixed wards and PR system used in municipal elections will make any great improvements (June 4).

Lobbyists for a predominantly constituency system evade the fact that our political parties have for a quarter of a century both imposed and dismissed ward councillors as the party’s national executive wishes, just as they do with PR councillors, MPLs and MPs. This rarely causes them difficulties. The proposal to limit PR to 100 seats in the National Assembly will simply wipe out most small parties and redistribute their seats between the ANC, DA and IFP. The lobbyists against our PR system usually dodge this fact.

Keith Gottschalk Claremont