REGIONAL PATTERNS IN SOUTH-AFRICA POSTAPARTHEID ELECTION IN 1994

The first universal-franchise elections in South Africa, for the Natio nal Assembly and nine provincial councils, were conducted under a syst em of proportional representation in April 1994. The African National Congress won a substantial victory but failed to secure control of two key provinces: the Western Cape and KwaZulu-Natal. Ethnic voting patt erns among the spatially concentrated Coloured and Zulu populations we re at variance with the otherwise national-liberationary nature of the election. The South African experience of the significance of ethnic voting parallels that discerned in other emergent democracies, contrib uting to the widening held of electoral geography.