With the help of the EFF, NFP, Al-Jama-ah and PAC, the ANC in the National Assembly pushed through the Electoral Amendment Bill on Thursday.
The bill was met by fierce criticism from members of civil organisations as well as opposition that included the likes of the DA, IFP and FF+.
The results were 232 in favour, 98 against and three abstentions. Now that it's been adopted, it will go to the National Council of Provinces for concurrence.
The bill emanated from a ground-breaking apex court order delivered in 2020 compelling lawmakers to amend the Electoral Act to allow for independents to contest elections in 2024.
The minister of home affairs Aaron Motsoaledi, as mandated by law, submitted the draft bill to parliament earlier this year.
As the matter was tabled by the home affairs portfolio committee chairperson Mosa Chabane, parties were quick to ventilate their thoughts on the controversial bill.
Before the parliamentary portfolio committee sat, various groups disagreed with the bill in its current form.
DA MP Adrian Roos, who rejected the bill, said the first glaring problem was that the bill proposed that independent candidates would be able to stand for election to the National Assembly in each province, however, it excluded them from standing on the proportional representation 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,” he said.
IFP MP Liezl van der Merwe said it was her party's view that in the interest of fairness, and of meaningful consultation, and to give effect to the current ConCourt order, parliament should open the process for further consultation.
“If this bill is referred to the NCOP today, the IFP will call on parliament to consider beefing up the NCOP process by establishing a committee involving all stakeholders, including civil society and the best constitutional law experts to finalise the bill alongside MPs. It is not too late to include a compromise that will see, for example, MPs directly being elected from their constituencies.
Van der Merwe said the 2024 elections would be make or break for the future of SA, and they needed to restore power to the people.
EFF MP Thapelo Mogale, who supported the bill, said the public participation process was transparent, fair and straightforward.
“All the people of South Africa, including civil society organisations, were given adequate opportunity and space to meet inputs and comments on the bill.
“It is the choice of groups who seek to contest elections as to whether they intend to do so within an organisation or as an individual and no-one is forced to join a political party, and no-one is forced to be a so-called independent candidate.”
Mogale said the bill was correct and legitimate in stating that the minimum requirements of any political parties must be the same as that of the so-called independent candidates.
“The threshold for the nomination of independent candidates must not be less than 20,000. These must be people who are registered to vote and the IEC must be able to verify them individually. The list of the 20,000 people supporting an independent candidate must also be made public so that voters and individuals who are fraudulently added to this list can publicly disassociate from those who misuse their names.
“The reasons we're saying the threshold must be higher for those wishing to contest this is because if it is lower, we're going to have thousands of candidates for provincial and national elections, and that will be impossible to efficiently administer from an electoral point of view,” Mogale said.
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