South Africans cast their votes at the Joburg City Hall voting station on 1 November 2021. Picture: Michel Bega
The Electoral Amendment Bill has been adopted although there are some objections to parts of the draft legislation.
Parliament’s Portfolio Committee on Home Affairs met on Wednesday to deliberate on a B-List on the Bill before referring it to the National Assembly.
This follows the adoption of an A-List last Friday after the committee broadened the scope of the Bill.
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The committee, which has been tasked to amend the Electoral Act 73 of 1998 to allow independent candidates to contest elections and to substitute Schedule 1A among others, had made substantive amendments to the Bill so it decided to open another round of public public submissions.
It was given until 10 December 2022, to complete its work after it was granted a six-month extension by the Constitutional Court (ConCourt) in June.
During Wednesday’s proceedings, the committee went over clauses that were amended following a second window of public submissions.
Among other things, MPs agreed that independent candidates should be allowed to contest elections in one or more regions for the National Assembly.
An independent candidate, however, may only be elected to one seat in the National Assembly as well as the provincial legislature in the province in which they are registered as a voter.
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As a result of the one seat decision, the Bill will include a seat forfeiture and recalculation method to award remaining seats.
In addition, independent candidates are also required to gather the signatures and identity numbers of the voters who support them, which must total 20% of the quota for a seat, to stand for elections. They will also need to pay a deposit.
While ANC MPs were in support, the Democratic Alliance (DA) and Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) MPs rejected some parts of the Bill and chose yet again to not support the adoption of the legislation.
According to Parliament’s website on “how laws are made“, the Bill will now go to the National Assembly for a debate.
MPs in the National Assembly will vote on whether to pass the Bill after the debate, and proceed to the select committees for discussion.
It will then go to the National Council of Provinces (NCOP) for a debate and vote, before it is sent to President Cyril Ramaphosa for approval.
“Once we have [sent] the report to the National Assembly, the National Council of Provinces will then begin its process so that we are able to meet the deadline that the court has established,” the committee’s chairperson, Mosa Chabane said on Wednesday.
Some organisations – including Defend Our Democracy, My Vote Counts and Rivonia Circle – have argued that the Bill in its current form can be subject to a number of challenges in the courts because they were of the view that proposed amendments by civil society and other interested parties “were simply ignored”.
The groups had made submissions to the ministerial advisory committee (MAC), which in its majority view, recommended a system that combined both a mixed single-member constituency and proportional representation (PR) system.
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However, the MAC’s minority proposal was chosen and drafted the Amendment Bill that relied solely on a PR system.
Home Affairs Minister Aaron Motsoaledi had appointed the MAC in February 2021, following a ConCourt ruling that declared the Electoral Act unconstitutional.
Meanwhile, the organisations on Monday launched a nationwide campaign against the Bill, calling on the president not to sign the bill.
They have argued that the Bill was unfair and will put the 2024 national elections at risk if it is not changed.
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