Talk:2009 South African general election

Comments

Why does the infobox say "575 (of the 601) seats" are up for election to a 400 seat legislature? Both the official page on it (National Assembly of South Africa) and the lead of the articel contain this #, so where 575 and 601? 68.39.174.238 (talk) 02:21, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

Switching pictures for DA candidate

The Democratic Alliance is picking Joe Seremane as their presidential candidate: link. In the current climate of SA politics, I find it weird, given that SA doesn't have separate presidential elections; the ruling party just picks its own candidate for president when they win the majority in parliament. But since the DA is ran by Helen Zille (the mayor of Cape Town) and led in parliament by Sandra Botha (leader of Opposition), then is it appropriate to replace Zille's picture with Seremane's picture (if one can be found and uploaded)? I can understand that Zuma's picture is up there since the ANC says that the president of the party is to become the president of the country automatically if 1) the party gains a majority and 2) once Zuma is installed as an MP. --Toussaint (talk) 03:26, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Oops, nevermind. Seremane was the DA's candidate against Motlanthe. Switching the front page contestant photo back to Zille. --Toussaint (talk) 04:17, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

Should COPE be in the table at the top

The DA is the official opposition and the ANC is the governing party, so perhaps just these two should be in the top table. The inexperience of COPE means that it's credibility is largely based on speculation. Teatreez (talk) 00:23, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Agreed. We could mention the first and second parties from the previous election but COPE doesn't belong in that table. I'll wait a day or so and then make the change. Anyway, the table incorrectly lists Dandala as the leader. Zain Ebrahim (talk) 10:12, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Yes it should. It is widely expected by essentially all publications that COPE is going to be among the top parties and should be included.--TM 13:52, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

So you're saying that the criterion for inclusion in the table is your interpretation of vague expectations in public media? In that case, we should remove the entire table as a violation of WP:NOR. Zain Ebrahim (talk) 13:56, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Well, it is not just "my vague interpretations", check this article or this article on polling data. As you probably know, 8-12%, as the second article predicts, is a good amount of the vote in a SA election. 8-12% would place the party as top competition for the "official opposition" title in the next parliament. Taking COPE out just because it hasn't run in a general election yet is harmful to those seeking to understand the election.--TM 14:05, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

I disagree. To deal with your concern, we could easily add a section on "new parties" or even "COPE". But, in keeping with the other post-1994 election articles, we should only include the first and second parties from the previous election in the opening table. The fact that some commentators feel that COPE may beat the DA isn't good enough to warrant their inclusion in the opening table. Zain Ebrahim (talk) 14:13, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Everything about COPE is too speculative. The table should only have the ruling-party and the official opposition. COPE is neither. This recent article in the Telegraph http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/southafrica/4995544/South-Africa-opposition-warns-country-could-become-failed-state.html suggests that COPE is not getting too far. Teatreez (talk) 23:09, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

The COPE is the third largest party and was discussed aside from the traditional ANC vs. DA and is the third main opposition party. Plus recent polls could give COPE about 10% of the vote. It should be placed in the table.Rizalninoynapoleon (talk) 05:11, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

Please do not edit the article without establishing consensus on this talk page first. All of the election articles list the winning party and the opposition party in the opening table - that is the only criterion when deciding what to include in the table. It has nothing to do with recent polls or whether the party was close to second place. Zain Ebrahim (talk) 15:59, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

Parties who formed government or became the official opposition (not only national) should only be put in the table:ANC, DA, COPE and IFP. Rizalninoynapoleon (talk) 04:29, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

The infobox may make people think that the DA's 2004-2009 +17 came from the ANC's -15. This is unlikely, since race and liberation politics is still determining votes in South Africa, with policies and ethics almost entirely ignored. The DA probably expanded its white and "coloured" vote (taking from the ID). The ANC probably lost its votes to COPE (who probably took from the UDM). The ANC probably lost all its white votes (due to Zuma), but expanded (despite COPE) its black vote - especially among Zulus, conservatives, the young, and the poor. Since we can't put COPE in the infobox; and usability studies show most people only read headlines, subs, tables, graphs, captions - with very few reading the actual text to the end; how can we fix the infobox? Summaries of (HSRC?) exit polls when they come out? Anyone know where the 1.3% Christian (-0.79, -0.38, -0.13) (more than the 5th biggest party) votes went? -- Jeandré, 2009-04-26t08:56z

Is the Info on COPE Correct?

Granted that Mvume Dandala is the Presidential Candidate of COPE but he is not the leader. The leader is Mosiuoa Lekota (see Congress_of_the_People_(South_African_political_party) and in fact Lekota's picture will be appearing on ballots. I agree with the point above that from a consistency perspective either include all parties OR only the ruling party & the official oposition. Gidzz —Preceding undated comment added 15:40, 27 March 2009 (UTC).

I removed COPE from the table per the above discussion. Zain Ebrahim (talk) 19:23, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Results Available:

Here: http://www.news24.com/News24/Elections/Home/0,,,00.html#map Axxn (talk) 09:26, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

2009 Election Boycott

This section makes little or not sense. Why has the somewhat unknown movement, No Land! No House! No Vote!, have their own section? Are we supposed to list the political agendas of all the parties? Even those who are not taking part in the election? And even then, shouldn't it be a sub-section of Opposition?
Also, the section is called "2009 Election Boycott", so why is the main article redirecting to that one particular movement? It seems to me that the 2 are not really related. Yes, they might have boycotted the elections, but it is not the 'main' article about the boycott.
A lot of people claimed not to want to participate, (Desmond Tutu, Merafong claimed they wouldn't), if we are going to have a section about Election Boycott it would make a lot more sense to mention them.
I suggest we remove the section altogether. FFMG (talk) 13:48, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

I agree. Either contextualise it properly or remove it per WP:FRINGE. Zain Ebrahim (talk) 16:01, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

Delete it Roger (talk) 09:53, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

One way to contextualise it may be to have a section on voter turnout, and then have one sentence in that section devoted to the above-mentioned campaign. Such a section can also include information about how some voting stations garnered more than 100% voters (eg Boesmansriviermond in the Eastern Cape saw 135% voter turnout) (the reason probably being that people on holiday could vote anywhere -- I myself voted far, far away from home, so only my national vote counts). -- leuce (talk) 11:02, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

Firstly, this was a well known campaign in the run up to the elections and particularly in the western cape. Whole communities of thousands participated. While the mainstream media tends to ignore campaigns that are not connected to specific political parties, it actually did cover this which means it is particularly relevant. Second, the reason it doesn't include context about voter turnout is because that was not known until 1 or 2 days ago. I agree this should be updated and I will attempt to take in people's suggestions to help contextualize it better. My suggestion is that people try to improve articles themselves rather than just post instructions for other people. Also, deleting important information just because on has a 'pro-voting' political agenda or because that particular person has not heard of the issue at hand, does not mean it is justifiable to do so. Wikipedia is meant to be a public resource where people can find a range of information on a particular topic. Deleting opposing viewpoints hinders the democracy that is meant to be practiced here. Finally, using WP:FRINGE as an example is incorrect and disingenuous because that article is talking about "Fringe Theories" in science. A vote boycott has nothing to do with a fringe theory. Frombelow (talk) 16:15, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

I am not questioning their campaign, a few political, (and non political), parties wanted to boycott the elections for various reasons. My question was more about the format of the section, (the 'main' article had nothing to do about election boycott). In fact the way it is now is more about a small political group rather than any kind of boycott in general.

But, I also question the need for the section altogether, the article is about "South African general elections", not about the various agendas of every political/non political groups.

Otherwise we would need to include the agenda of the other 26 parties.

Furthermore, with around 77% turnout, I fail to see where there was any kind of real Election Boycott.

Is the section really related to the article? FFMG (talk) 18:05, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

I say we get rid of "The above campaign was joined by a large number of spontaneous boycotts by various communities all over South Africa." at the very least. Then we should shorten the previous sentence about the "No land no house no vote". And yes, WP:FRINGE was created to avoid marginal scientific views from getting undue weight compared to with mainstream ideas in science articles. But we can certainly use it as a framework here - we shouldn't give excessive weight to marginal issues. Zain Ebrahim (talk) 18:19, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

My comments were concerned with the people who claimed it should be deleted altogether. Regarding those people, i think they are not being helpful. At FFMG, I attempted to address your concerns. The section is now not only about one campaign and I removed the 'see also' section.

The agenda's of 26 parties have to do with policies and political personalities. An election boycott has to do with the general election itself. That is why it is relevant. Also, your 77% turnout figure regards people who registered and did not vote. You should also take into account the number of people of voting age who did not register. Most of the people who boycotted were likely to have decided to boycott before registration even took place. There are about 7 million people who did not even register.

Finally, the relevence of the boycott relates to specific communities boycotting. While figures are not out yet as such, I am sure after figures do come in, there will be communities where 80 or 90% of the people of voting age did not vote.

Regarding Zain's comments, I maintain that theory (regardless of whether it is scientific or social theory) can be considered a fringe theory. But we are not talking about theories here. We are talking about events. This event did happen. Theres nothing theoretical about it.

After your comments, i do agree that the last sentence is not so important and might as well be removed.

I fail to see how it is possible to shorten the second to last sentence without removing relevant list of some of the organisations that are boycotting.

I hope that my comments and edits are received in good faith. Frombelow (talk) 18:35, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

I'm comfortable with that section now. Zain Ebrahim (talk) 19:43, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

Regarding your other point, I think WP:UNDUE covers what I meant better. Zain Ebrahim (talk) 21:09, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

I still respectfully disagree. WP:UNDUE speaks only of 'viewpoints'. The section on Election Boycott is not an attempt to represent a viewpoint. At least thats not the primary intent. The intent is to represent an 'action'. Something that people are actually doing. Even the sentence on Tutu is concerned not with why he wanted to boycott the vote but with the fact that he, at first, was going to do so. Regardless, using this definition, I quote from the article: "Keep in mind that in determining proper weight we consider a viewpoint's prevalence in reliable sources, not its prevalence among Wikipedia editors." Just because one person might call it a minor issue does not mean it is. I have shown there are many sources available on this topic and there are hundreds more available in print that are not online - most of the information on this topic does not get put online.Frombelow (talk) 08:22, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

2004 results versus 2008 results

In the table of seats, an indication is given of how many seats the party has lost or gained since the 2004 election. This would make sense for a country whose leadership is chosen by elections alone. But not South Africa -- we also have floor-crossing between elections. I think a more useful column would be one that shows how many seats the party has lost or won since the very day before the current election, and not since the 2004 election. Only that will be a true reflection of how much a party has lost or gained. What do you think? -- leuce (talk) 19:13, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

Done. I'm thinking tho that, eventho it's the voters' fault for voting for floor crossing losers, and unconscionably worse: voting for floor crossing accepters, should there now be a 2004 post election seats column, so one can compare changes in 2009vote-2004vote vs 2009vote-2007fc-2005fc-2004vote? -- Jeandré, 2009-04-26t08:00z

I fail to see how voters were responsible for the floor crossing. Anyway, I don't think we need too many columns. For me, the main question at the time of an election is how many seats a party wins or loses over what they had just before the election. If the columns reflect that information, then no other columns detailling the inbetween movements are necessary.

BTW, I see what has been done in the table now... I like it, although the column headers could be better :-) And is it not possible to use bold vertical lines to group related columns together? -- leuce (talk) 10:48, 26 April 2009 (UTC) -- leuce (talk) 10:45, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

If voters keep voting for parties that accept floor crossers, floor crossing continues (until the 74.25% party is afraid they won't be able to cope with a breakaway party) - people deserve the government they vote in.

Instead of bold verticals (black null columns?), how about lite colors for the whole column? The most contrast on %2009, seats2009, and 2009-2007; and then another color for the 3 floor crossing columns? -- Jeandré, 2009-04-26t13:44z

How about just having four columns for seat allocation: 2004, 2005, 2007, 2009. No +- columns since it would not be clear what the change was relative to. See {{Western Cape provincial election, 2009}} to see what I mean. - htonl (talk) 15:53, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

CDA versus CDP

I see the CDP is listed in the 2009 results, but the CDP did not participate in the 2009 election under its own name. It formed an alliance party called the CDA. I added the CDA's results to the CDP row, but perhaps I should not have done that... what's the policy for parties that swallowed other parties and then had a slight name change (eg DP > DA, CDP > CDA, etc)? How are they listed? -- leuce (talk) 19:23, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

Fixed. -- Jeandré, 2009-04-26t06:50z

New National Party

Why is the NNP listed? It doesn't even exist anymore... for the past four years already. It didn't have any seats and didn't gain any, yet there is a seat change percentage! How credible is this page then? — Adriaan (T★C) 20:40, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

Parties which contested in 2004 and did not contest in 2009 are included in the table, but the "votes" column is empty. This makes perfect sense to me. How else would you suggest representing this information in the table? Zaian (talk) 21:13, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

I think they should be just left out, personally. That's what's done in the table for the 2004 elections. - htonl (talk) 22:02, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

Leaving them out would make it look like there were less than 400 seats in the previous election per the seats change column. The floor crossers change column is needed because otherwise there are 2 missing seats when just comparing 2004/2009. -- Jeandré, 2009-04-26t05:47z

I think the new floor crossing column will resolve the confusion. The "Change" column needs to be consistent - either indicating the seats change since 2004, or since the 2007 floor crossing, or there could be two "change" columns. Zaian (talk) 06:57, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

The current confusion of the change columns can be resolved by using longer headings, i.e. "Change since 2004 election", or "Change since before the election" instead of just "Change". But we're getting to a point where we have expect some intelligence from the reader when interpreting the table. The table is nice to have, but people should read wider than the table to get the full picture. Footnotes to the table can also help. -- leuce (talk) 08:00, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Cannot be "election result" if it doesn't exist. Misleading and irrelevant. If the party existed previously, but doesn't exist now, unnecessary to say that it has no seats in parliament.41.241.161.201 (talk) 11:53, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Needs "summary" section

This article needs a section summarizing what the election results mean for the future for those who're not familiar with SA's political system. For example, I'm not sure if this was correct, but I think I read somewhere that DA's hope was to prevent the ANC from getting over 66.6% of the vote, which would have allowed them to change the constitution. In that case, the DA seems to have succeeded.

Also, some words on trends would be nice - some explanation for why DA was strengthened in Western Cape and nowhere else, while ANC was strengthened in Zulu lands and weakened everywhere else. This may seem obvious to residents of the country, but it should still be explained in the article. Esn (talk) 07:01, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Results

Is it only me or are the final national votes Party names in another language? Bezuidenhout (talk) 10:53, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, User:Nico.diaconescu seems to think this is the Romanian wikipedia. I've reverted it. - htonl (talk) 11:40, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

Summary table: a proposal

I have proposed on Template talk:South African general election, 2009 a change to that summary table. I'm mentioning it here since this page is the main use of that template. Please post any comments there, not here. - htonl (talk) 01:36, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

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