Africa-Press – South-Africa. The Portfolio Committee on Home Affairs still needs to decide on three issues before it can complete its work on the Electoral Amendment Bill.
These are whether independent candidates should be able to contest elections in multiple provinces; a cooling-off period before a person can stand as an independent after leaving a party; and how many signatures prospective independent candidates should submit to the Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC).
The committee met on Friday to discuss these matters. They also received briefings from the Department of Home Affairs and the IEC, but decided to go back to their parties to reconsider the issues.
“We need to go and consult, including the legal services,” said committee chairperson Mosa Chabane, noting that parliamentary legal services had not had enough time to apply their minds.
“We’ll go back and relook on those issues,” he said.
He added that this would take some time.
“All of us, we are worried, and we should work so that we are within the timeframe to complete this process.”
Electoral Amendment Bill: After minister’s ‘delay’, Parliament ‘should have done more’ – ConCourt
The timeframes for the bill have been problematic.
The Constitutional Court already gave Parliament a reprieve of six months after it failed to meet the original deadline set by the apex court.
The bill is necessitated by an 11 June 2020 Constitutional Court ruling that declared the Electoral Act unconstitutional, “to the extent that it requires that adult citizens may be elected to the National Assembly and provincial legislatures only through their membership of political parties”.
The apex court then suspended the declaration of unconstitutionality for “24 months to afford Parliament an opportunity to remedy the defect giving rise to the unconstitutionality”.
However, Parliament didn’t start work on an amendment bill immediately. It was left to the Department of Home Affairs after consultations between the two entities.
Why the next elections will be ‘uncharted territory’ for the IEC
Home Affairs Minister Aaron Motsoaledi appointed a ministerial advisory committee, chaired by former minister Valli Moosa in February 2021, more than six months after the court order.
The committee’s majority recommendation envisaged a system that provided a mixed single-member constituency and proportional representation (PR) system.
Motsoaledi and his department went had gone with the minority advice and drafted a bill that relied solely on a PR system, amending it as little as possible.
The ANC has subsequently fallen in step behind Motsoaledi, after the bill was eventually introduced to Parliament in January this year. This left the national legislature with the impossible task of complying with all requirements before the 10 June deadline.
On the same day that the deadline would have expired, the Constitutional Court granted Parliament’s plea for a six-month extension.
Parliament envisaged passing the bill in September, which would allow it enough time to make further changes if the Presidency was to send it back.
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