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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)
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)
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)
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 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, 2009-04-26 t08:56z
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).
Here: http://www.news24.com/News24/Elections/Home/0,,,00.html#map Axxn ( talk) 09:26, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
Is it only me or are the final national votes Party names in another language? Bezuidenhout ( talk) 10:53, 26 June 2010 (UTC)
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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This is the
talk page for discussing improvements to the
2009 South African general election article. This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject. |
Article policies
|
Find sources: Google ( books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL |
A news item involving 2009 South African general election was featured on Wikipedia's Main Page in the In the news section on 26 April 2009. |
This article is rated Start-class on Wikipedia's
content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | ||||||||||||||||||
|
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)
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)
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)
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 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, 2009-04-26 t08:56z
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).
Here: http://www.news24.com/News24/Elections/Home/0,,,00.html#map Axxn ( talk) 09:26, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
Is it only me or are the final national votes Party names in another language? Bezuidenhout ( talk) 10:53, 26 June 2010 (UTC)
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)
The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion:
Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. — Community Tech bot ( talk) 17:08, 25 May 2019 (UTC)
The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion:
Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. — Community Tech bot ( talk) 22:08, 9 June 2019 (UTC)