Constitutional Court Paves the Way for Electoral Reform
11 June 2020
The Constitutional Court has delivered a landmark judgement today, allowing for independent candidates to contest National and Provincial Elections.
The relevance of this judgement lies in its ability to pave the way for electoral reform, a fundamental value of The People’s Dialogue emanating from the submissions of the millions of South Africans who shared their views with us.
For parliament to give expression to this judgement, it cannot stop at amending the Electoral Act simply to allow for independent candidates to contest at a National or Provincial level. This could result in a scenario where an independent candidate garnered more votes than the required threshold for a single seat in the National Assembly or a Provincial Legislature and the remainder of the votes would have to be redistributed to other political parties who were not chosen by those voters.
In our view, for the Constitutional Court ruling to be given full expression, Parliament must amend the Electoral Act to provide for a change to our electoral system. Parliament must amend the Electoral Act to provide for a mixed electoral system, providing for at least half of the 400 seats to be directly elected through constituencies.