Electoral Amendment Bill a perversion of democracy
17 April 2023
The Electoral Amendment Bill signed into law today, is a perversion of democracy.
This legislation fails on both the grounds of fair participation by independent candidates as well as general proportionality. The Bill was meant to facilitate the participation of independent candidates in National and Provincial elections in a way that general proportionality is retained. Instead, the ANC twisted the seat allocation system in such a way that the lions’ share of wasted votes goes to the ANC.
When the Bill was being finalised Thabo Mbeki was quoted as saying that: “When the matter was discussed at the (ANC) national executive committee (NEC) not long ago, you had members of the NEC of the ANC saying we must write the electoral law so that the ANC wins. Comrades cited examples to reinforce this point. How can the ANC design electoral policy so that it wins?”.
According to an ANC internal poll the DA has closed in within 10 percentage points behind the ANC. And so, the ANC’s goal to ensure that it wins is being intensified in this Bill through crafty calculations. Independent candidates are not able to stand on the national ballot, but instead can stand on all of the provincial ballots. This not only limits them to contest for half the seats in parliament, but the total of those votes gained across the different provinces is not added together. Why do it this way?