Discover South Africa

South Africa has three capital cities: Cape Town is the legislative capital, Pretoria is the administrative capital and Bloemfontein is the judicial capital. The bicameral parliament consists of ninety members of the National Council of Provinces NCOP (the upper house) and four hundred members of the National Assembly (the lower house). Ten members from each province are elected to represent that province in the NCOP. The NCOP ensures that each province is given a voice in the national legislative process. It consists of 6 permanent delegates and 4 special delegates from each of the nine provinces. The premier of a province is the head of that province’s delegation. Half of the members of the lower house are elected from national lists and half are elected from provincial lists. The government is formed in the lower house, and the leader of the majority party in the National Assembly is the President. Elections for both chambers are held every five years.

National assembly seats are directly proportional to the election results. If a party wins 40% of the vote during elections, it will have 40% of the seats. The balance of power in the House can, however, be influenced by floor crossing. Floor crossing happens twice in a five-year term of the Assembly. During the floor-crossing period, a member will not lose his or her seat if he or she joins another party or starts his or her own party, subject to certain conditions. Parties may also merge or subdivide in this period. The President may attend meetings of the National Assembly and may speak in the Assembly, but he or she does not have a vote.

Current South African politics are dominated by the African National Congress (ANC), which received 69.7% of the vote during the last 2004 general election and 66.3% of the vote in the 2006 municipal election. The current (2004 - 2009 term) President of South Africa is Thabo Mbeki, who succeeded former President Nelson Mandela. The main opposition party is the Democratic Alliance, which received 12.4% of the vote in the 2004 election and 14.8% in the 2006 election. The leader of this party is Helen Zille (elected 6 May 2007). The former New National Party, which introduced apartheid through its predecessor, the National Party, chose to merge with the ANC on 9 April 2005. Other major political parties represented in Parliament are the Inkatha Freedom Party, which mainly represents Zulu voters, and the Independent Democrats who took 6.97% and 1.7% of the vote respectively in the 2004 election.

MPs have freedom of speech in Parliament, as long as they keep within the parliamentary rules. They cannot be prosecuted, arrested, imprisoned or be expected to pay damages for anything they say, produce or submit in Parliament or its committees. Although ordinary citizens may not submit bills to Parliament, they may lobby MPs or committees to introduce legislation that deals with their concerns. The Bill of Rights guarantees freedom of expression, as long as this freedom is not used as propaganda for war, incitement to violence or the advocacy of hatred based on race, ethnicity, gender or religion.

Members of the Joint Standing Committee on Intelligence (JSCI) deal with classified and top secret information. It's the only committee that has meetings that are usually closed to the public. The members of the JSCI have to get security clearance from the National Intelligence Agency before they can serve on that committee.