Challenge: The most convoluted political system (Southern Africa)

[Burton K Wheeler]

This is a weird thread title. Bear with me.

For some time I've had sort of a half-assed idea to cooperatively come up with the most complicated possible political system. Tricameral or quadricameral legislature, Canadian-style federalism where one federal entity is half the country and some have less people than a small town, Canadian-style binationalism, split executives, multiple voting systems, all that. I was going to make a thread but realized that without a firm example of what the country is, we'd never get anywhere.

Then it hit me. There's a really obvious place where a simple POD could create a political entity where an insanely convoluted political system would not only be possible but likely.

A bit vague here, but let's say that Sir Henry Bartle-Frere doesn't make a colossal fuckup in 1879. His plan for a South African confederation works. Under British rule, you have Cape Colony, Natal (the southern half of the historical South African province), Transvaal, Oranje Vrystaat, KwaZulu, Lesotho, Swaziland, and Botswana. Rhodesia becomes a white settler colony on schedule but is incorporated into South Africa (like was narrowly voted down in the 1920's) and Southwest Africa becomes a South African mandate after the Great War. Zambia and Malawi would be South African territory but may become independent down the line.

I am way too lazy to make a map, but split Natal and KwaZulu on the Tugela river and change the other names and you have the idea.

So what does the political system of this federated South Africa look like in 2020? How did the country evolve? We can assume that transition to majority rule was gradual and peaceful and that representing all races and ethnicities is a cornerstone of its political system. We have wildly disparate federal entity sizes and prosperity, white binationalism along with 20 or so other major national groups that don't correspond with federal entity boundaries, and a lot more complicated factors without even introducing complications. Whether South Africa becomes a republic or maintains the monarchy is up to you. I think that some form of the latter would be more likely.

 

[Alex Richards]

Oh it could get more convoluted than simply that.

See if you moderate Bartle Frere you're likely to see the Xhosa states sticking around, which gives you a lovely collection of little states like Pondoland, GClaekaland and the like there as well.

EDIT: You might enjoy this thing myself and Reagent came up with.

 

[Burton K Wheeler]

Data points so you don't have to do it yourself:

OTL populations
Transvaal: 25 million (about half in metro Johannesburg)
Natal: 7.3 million
KwaZulu: 2.8 million
Cape: 13.5 million
Free State: 2.7 million
Botswana: 2.4 million
Swaziland: 1.4 million
Lesoto: 2.3 million
Namibia: 2.6 million
Zimbabwe: 17.3 million

TOTAL: 77.3 million

This isn't actually too bad, since you don't have any Wyomings or Nunavuts counterbalancing your Californias and Ontarios. Feel free to split up the provinces if you'd like to make it extra complicated. I would suggest that the mostly rural and black entities would have lower populations and that Transvaal, the Cape, Natal, and Free State might have larger ones, to reflect a lower black birth rate and more urbanized population.

I'd guess that the overall population would be about 10% white, 5% "coloured", and 2% Asian though of course the exact details of the country's history could change that.

 

[Burton K Wheeler]

Oh it could get more convoluted than simply that.

See if you moderate Bartle Frere you're likely to see the Xhosa states sticking around, which gives you a lovely collection of little states like Pondoland, GClaekaland and the like there as well.

I didn't actually think this POD through super well, but you're right. There was a Xhosa rebellion in Bartle-Frere's time. The Xhosa were annexed in 1876, but you could move that if you wanted. I think Cape Colony would be very reluctant to let the Xhosa free after annexation, though a splitting up of provinces like OTL could happen at some point later on, maybe around the 1930's as majority rule starts to get phased in. An independent Xhosa state or three sounds good, though.

Griqualand East and Griqualand West weren't annexed until after 1879, though. I like the idea of them being two disconnected pieces of one province.

 

[Burton K Wheeler]

Or Griqualand West could be a federal district of some kind, since it was an early bone of contention between the Cape and the Boer states. The capital of the federation would then be Kimberley.

 

[Alex Richards]

I didn't actually think this POD through super well, but you're right. There was a Xhosa rebellion in Bartle-Frere's time. The Xhosa were annexed in 1876, but you could move that if you wanted. I think Cape Colony would be very reluctant to let the Xhosa free after annexation, though a splitting up of provinces like OTL could happen at some point later on, maybe around the 1930's as majority rule starts to get phased in. An independent Xhosa state or three sounds good, though.

Griqualand East and Griqualand West weren't annexed until after 1879, though. I like the idea of them being two disconnected pieces of one province.

The Cape Province had to be almost literally bullied into accepting the Xhosa Annexation. It added a massive number of black people to a colony that was near-majority white and had quite a liberal franchise and so really didn't want that.

 

[Burton K Wheeler]

The Cape Province had to be almost literally bullied into accepting the Xhosa Annexation. It added a massive number of black people to a colony that was near-majority white and had quite a liberal franchise and so really didn't want that.

That was the 1847 annexation that caused much consternation, right? "Kaffraria" (obviously not a name that will survive) was deannexed and then reannexed in 1866. Which is far enough before the POD that it may not make sense. Maybe we can have the area spun off from the Cape later? In fact, if the Cape is trying to strike a balance between liberal franchise and rules that will satisfy the Boers, that makes more sense than not.

But if we say the Transkei annexation in 1876 doesn't go through, we can still have Fingoland, Pondoland, Idutywa, Thembuland, and Griqualand East separate from the Cape. Did those all exist at the same time?

 

[Alex Richards]

That was the 1847 annexation that caused much consternation, right? "Kaffraria" (obviously not a name that will survive) was deannexed and then reannexed in 1866. Which is far enough before the POD that it may not make sense. Maybe we can have the area spun off from the Cape later? In fact, if the Cape is trying to strike a balance between liberal franchise and rules that will satisfy the Boers, that makes more sense than not.

But if we say the Transkei annexation in 1876 doesn't go through, we can still have Fingoland, Pondoland, Idutywa, Thembuland, and Griqualand East separate from the Cape. Did those all exist at the same time?

The reannexation was down to the colony going bankrupt, so being able to get rid of it within a federal system that will take care of the debts may well be easier than expected.