Ballots and barriers: South Africa's electoral landscape post-judgement
11 December 2023
On 4 December, the Constitutional Court delivered a judgement that has far-reaching implications for the landscape of South African elections, particularly in relation to independent candidates. The case revolved around the Electoral Amendment Act, a piece of legislation that introduced changes to the electoral system, that had been ordered by the Constitutional Court in its New Nation Movement judgement (2020) to permit independent candidates to stand in national and provincial elections. Represented by Michael Louis, the One Movement South Africa (OSA) took a stance against certain provisions of the Act, arguing that they were unfair and unconstitutional.
OSA had two central complaints:
Firstly, the Act required that, in order to stand for election, independent candidates would have to obtain 15% of the signatures needed to win a seat. In OSA’s view, this requirement presented an unfair burden for independent candidates and discriminated unfairly against them vis-a-vis political parties registering for the first time.
Secondly, votes cast for independent candidates in the 200 regional seats to which they were limited, will have substantially less value than votes cast for political parties because they will not be able to share in the 200 seats that are distributed in terms of proportional representation.