Máster en Democracia y Gobierno Departamento de Ciencia Política y Relaciones Internacionales Universidad Autónoma de Madrid Working Papers Online Series http://www.uam.es/ss/Satellite/Derecho/es/1242658791834/listadoCom bo/Working_Papers.htm Estudio/Working Paper 162/2014 Electoral Behaviour in Deeply Divided Societies: The case of Contemporary South Africa Carlos García Rivero Universidad de Valencia
[email protected] * Paper for presentation at the Research Seminar – Master in Democracy and Government, Autonoma University, Madrid; March 12th, 2014 Work in progress, not for citation or quotation without the author’s permission © Carlos García-Rivero, Valencia University. Abstract South Africa became a multiracial democracy in 1994, and a dominant party system was configured in the political scenario with the ANC as the main political party. Since then race has been the main cleavage at the polls. This paper analyzes South Africa's party system and public opinion in an attempt to discern whether or not it is possible to reconfigure the party system into a more competitive one. Results show the following conclusions: ideological differences among different populations groups are being reduced; race is losing weight as a factor explaining vote; class indicators are gaining terrain as explanatory factors and; although not in the short term, the split-up within the ANC and the appearance of COPE should not be underestimated. The study is a quantitative analysis that makes extensive use of survey data gathered in South Africa in the last two decades. 2 Introduction South Africa held its first democratic multiracial elections in 1994 giving rise to a dominant party system where the African National Congress (ANC) has been and still is the main political party.