South Africans cast their votes at the Joburg City Hall voting station on 1 November 2021. Picture: Michel Bega
Parliament is planning for all eventualities as it edges closer to finishing its work on the Electoral Amendment Bill.
The bill is currently before the National Council of Provinces (NCOP) after MPs in the National Assembly voted in favour of passing the legislation last month.
The draft had been referred to the National Assembly by the Portfolio Committee on Home Affairs, which was tasked to amend the Electoral Act 73 of 1998 to allow independent candidates to contest elections among other things.
During Thursday’s Programming Committee meeting, some MPs expressed their desire to avoid missing deadlines with the parliamentary term set to end in the first week of December.
“My appeal is that we do our utmost best not to find any reason to extend our session. Sometimes, it happens that we stay another week,” Freedom Front Plus (FF+) chief whip, Corné Mulder said, with his sentiments being shared by United Democratic Movement (UDM) MP, Nqabayomzi Kwankwa.
However, ANC’s Regina Lesoma pointed out that some things may be “beyond our control in terms of timelines”.
“I would like to note that if the NCOP [suggest further changes and] refer the bill back to us then there will be the need to meet, but our intention is to finish all the work within the time that has been agree upon,” she said.
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While the bill has to be signed into law by 10 December, as per the ruling of the Constitutional Court (ConCourt), National Assembly Speaker Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula suggested that either Parliament extends its working programme to finalise any more changes or proceed with the legislation in its current form.
“If in the event the NCOP decides that it wants to refer this bill back to us, two things should be considered. We either extend and do our work, whether we will agree on how long that will take us to the end of that process is one matter we will have to look into, but the second possibility would be the NCOP passing the bill as it is,” she told the committee.
“Then we may have to consider that option of having a footnote that says the bill will have to be amended immediately after the 2024 elections, some work will have to be done, but for now we then use the current version to go to the [upcoming] elections.”
The 9th of November was the last day for the public to give feedback to the NCOP on the bill.
Several civil society organisations, including Defend our Democracy and the Ahmed Kathrada Foundation, have also raised objections over the bill and called on the NCOP not to pass the bill.
READ MORE: ‘New Electoral Act could just be a sneaky way to steal power’ from voters
The organisations have argued that the bill does not go far enough in allowing for a mixed electoral system, that makes provision for both a single-member constituency and a proportional representation (PR) system in order for voters to hold politicians accountable.
They have argued that the bill was unfair and will put the 2024 national elections at risk if it is not changed.
According to the bill, independent candidates are allowed to contest elections in one or more regions for the National Assembly.
But the candidate may only be elected to one seat in the National Assembly and the provincial legislature in the province in which they are registered as a voter.
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