ANC rams through electoral bill as opposition parties object

The ANC has used its majority in the National Assembly to ram through the contentious Electoral Amendment Bill despite vociferous opposition from other parties and a throng of civil society bodies.

The bill, which will allow independent candidates to contest both national and provincial elections for the first time in 2024, was rejected by seven parties in the National Assembly while it was supported by the ANC, the EFF, PAC, NFP and Al Jamah.

The parties that shot down the bill include the DA, IFP, FF Plus, ACDP, UDM, COPE and the ATM.

The Good Party and the AIC abstained.

The bill stems from a June 2020 Constitutional Court judgment that found the Electoral Act to be inconsistent with the constitution as it did not allow anyone to be elected to parliament outside the political party list system.

The ConCourt gave parliament 24 months to remedy the constitutional defect, a deadline which was extended at the request of parliament after the bill was submitted late by home affairs minister Aaron Motsoaledi for processing.

Parties opposed to the bill will now take their fight for “meaningful” changes to the bill to the National Council of Provinces where it will be processed for concurrence after it was passed by 232 votes against 98.

During the heated debate, MPs opposed to the bill argued that in its current form, the bill disadvantaged independent candidates.

Civil society bodies opposed to the bill, such as the Council for the Advancement of the SA Constitution, My Vote Counts and Defend our Democracy, have advanced similar reasons for denouncing the bill.

This was because, among other reasons, it required independent candidates to have a threshold of at least 20,000 supporters in a constituency or province they wished to contest, whereas parties need only 1,000 supporters.

Independent candidates would be granted only one seat in the National Assembly through adequate votes from one region or province, with the rest of votes from other provinces counting for nothing.

DA MP Adrian Roos fired the first salvo.

“The first glaring problem is that the bill proposes that independent candidates be able to stand for election to the National Assembly in each province, however it excludes them from standing on the proportional representative list.

“They can only gain a region to national assembly seat in one province and the rest of their votes are discarded. However, they must pay the fee and submit the support petitions in every province. This has the result that an independent can gain enough votes across provinces to gain a seat but not be awarded a seat.

“Furthermore, they are excluded from contesting 200 of the 400 available seats. This is clearly unfair,” said Roos.

The EFF's Thapelo Mogale said criticism of the bill was simply “nonsensical”.

“We therefore reject with contempt, these nonsensical letters send by organisations such as Right2Know, Rivonia Circle, Helen Suzman Foundation, My Vote Counts and all these fake organisations which do not have any constituencies,” said Mogale.

However, the IFP's Liezl van der Merwe differed, saying that the National Assembly had rushed the bill and the process for more public consultation, especially the threshold allowing for the participation of independents.

UDM leader Bantu Holomisa said while the inclusion of independent candidates “is a step in the right direction,” the changes passed by MPs on Thursday “do not go far enough”.

“Since the days of the now defunct Idasa, the UDM has been advancing the agenda of an electoral system that in a larger part is a constituency-based system, a mixed system of proportional representation and constituency, like we now have at municipal level and which will boost accountability to the electorate.”

But ANC MP Brandon Pillay insisted that the ANC's preference for the PR system was in fact for the benefit of smaller parties.

“If the ANC was interested only in winning elections, it would have gone for the constituency-based system. The ANC dominates geographic representation across the country. But as party we've consistently demonstrated what's good for the constitution,” he said.

Motsoaledi dismissed the criticism, saying much of it was based on a “misunderstanding” that the ConCourt judgment had obliged parliament to change the electoral law beyond ensuring the participation of independents.

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