New Electoral Amendment Bill slated

Several civil society institutions have slammed the Electoral Amendment Bill being processed by parliament.

Chief executive officer at Inclusive Society Institute (ISI) Darly Swanepoel said the Bill as presented had a minimalistic approach and the opportunity had been missed to bring about greater electoral reform.

According to Swanepoel, there needed to be a contingency system that would have multiparty representation with overall proportionality reflected in the National Assembly.

He said ISI proposed a new electoral system formed by a panel of experts where more focus was necessary on improving accountability and the important sentiments in the country.

“A mixed constituency system, where at the national level, 300 candidates would be elected via 66 multimember constituencies (MMC), comprising between three and seven members per MMC, and 100 members via a compensatory proportional representation list, which will be used to ensure overall proportionality in terms of the number of votes cast in the election,” he said.

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“The MMCs would be based on the existing district and metropolitan council boundaries and the same concept will be applied at the provincial level. The institute holds the conviction the model being proposed by itself best balances accountability and representation, with executional practicality and simplicity, while adhering to the constitutional prescription of proportionality, in general.”

Swanepoel added the ISI welcomed the introduction of the Bill. The first day of oral submissions to the home affairs portfolio committee on the Bill took place yesterday. Parliament has to pass the Bill by June as instructed by the Constitutional Court (ConCourt).

One South Africa Movement spokesperson Mudzuli Rakhivhane criticised the committee for wasting time processing the Bill.

She said it had moved at a “snail’s pace” for 18 months and now wanted the ConCourt to grant it more time to process the Bill.

“Not only does the Amendment Bill in its current form fail to rise to the transformative occasion, it has the potential to disincentive people from voting,” she said.

“It adds yet another reason why people may not exercise their constitutional right to vote, instead of reforming our electoral laws in a manner that re-energises and re-franchises the electorate. This portion of the Bill has the potential to perpetuate the inequality in society where some voices matter and some voices do not.”

Rachel Fischer from the Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse (Outa) told the committee the Bill was problematic on a number of levels. She said Outa had found there was a lack of public participation in the process.

– lungas@citizen.co.za