National Assembly of South Africa - Allocation

Allocation

The National Assembly seats are allocated using a proportional representation system with closed lists. Seats are first allocated according to the (integer part of the) Droop quota. Thereafter at most five seats are allocated using the largest remainder method (using the Droop quota). Any additional seats are allocated amongst the parties who then already have seats using the highest averages method.

Voters have one vote at elections to the National Assembly. Seats are allocated in ten multi-member constituencies via party lists. One constituency is a national or 'at large' constituency and nine others represent each of the nine provinces. The lists were called the national lists and regional lists in the 2009 election. 'Regional' was used to avoid confusion with the provincial legislature elections held at the same time. Previously they were called 'National to National' and 'Provincial to National'. Parties decide whether they want to set up both national and provincial lists or only provincial lists. If all parties choose national lists then half of the members will come from the national 'at large' constituency and half from the nine provincial constituencies. If no party chooses a national list then all members will come from the nine provincial constituencies. In the 2009 election one party chose not to use a national list resulting in 168 members being elected from the national constituency and 232 from the nine provincial constituencies.