Elections expert: Decision on number of signatures favours political parties

On one of the rare occasions the Constitutional Court has been criticised for its ruling, an elections specialist has described as “poor” the court’s decision this week on independent candidates.

The ruling, said elections results expert Michael Atkins, undermined the landmark 2020 decision of the court on the need for independents to enter the national election for the first time.

But the Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) believes the decision is good for democracy and said it would only make a few adjustments to align with the ruling in its plan to prepare for the 2024 general election.

Mawethu Mosery, IEC deputy chief electoral officer: outreach, said: “This is good for us. We welcome the decision. The court has spoken, it brings the matter to a close.”

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The likely changes pertained to system and process requirements – especially with regards to signatures that must be obtained – otherwise the rest were confirmed as being in line with the constitution.

The ConCourt ruled that independents required only 1 000 signatures to qualify to contest elections, a move that was universally applauded.

However, the second part of the judgment left some frowning because it favoured political parties, which needed to garner fewer votes than the independents at national elections to gain parliamentary seats.

Atkins was clearly unhappy with the ruling which, he said, was poor because the court did not address the bottom line – that independent candidates require vastly more votes for a seat in the National Assembly compared to political parties.

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“Aside from the unfairness for independent candidates in the 2024 election, the judgment is unfortunate, as the poor quality of he Electoral Amendment Act as a whole is not properly known or understood,” he said.

The court might have been persuaded by “misleading explanations” given by the IEC. Atkins said votes required by independents in the regional elections should be compared with the overall seat allocation for parties. The regional elections are only provisional results for parties.

“It is meaningless to compare final results for independents with those provisional results for parties,” he said.

“This creates a massive disincentive for independents to contest national elections. It also makes the victory on signatures much less meaningful if they need so many votes.”

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The expert said it was absurd that, as the ConCourt ruled, even if literally, an independent who got 60 000 votes would still fail to get a seat, while a party that got 55 000 votes could get two seats.

Also, with the signatures, parties without seats still need the high number of signatures, which was 14 000 for the National Assembly, and between 2 500 and 8 000 for each of the provincial legislatures.

He believes that the judge might have been misled by the IEC argument that the quota for the regional elections was the same for parties and for independents.

Atkins said the independents would still feel cheated even after the court ruling when it comes to seats obtained. “The thing is that there are no separate elections for separate seats. The regional elections are final for independents, but only provisional for parties.

You need to compare the final with the final to understand the unfairness,” he said. “As it stands, this creates a disincentive for independents to contest National Assembly elections, which undermines the value of the 2020 judgment,” Atkins said.

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