A step towards deepening our democracy
The Constitutional Court is to be commended for finally ruling on the terms of participating in 2024’s general elections by independent political candidates. The apex court ruled that the higher threshold of 11,000 signatures for participating in the elections is unconstitutional and lowered it to a reasonable 1,000 signatures.
But it dismissed a bid to enable independents to contest all of the 400 available seats in the National Assembly. Independents will only be allowed to vie for half of the seats, leaving political parties an opportunity to contest all through the current proportional representation system.
In a move to respect the doctrine of the separation of powers between the legislature and the judiciary, parliament has been given a year to align the electoral law with the judgment.
The 11,000 hurdle was not only unreasonable, but also a sinister ploy by the major parties to frustrate the entry of independents in electoral politics. Most of the independent candidates come from the ranks of major parties which are losing touch with the aspirations of the electorate. So the landmark judgment loosens the octopus-like grip major political parties have had on our electoral politics. This is a step towards enhancing accountability to the electorate. Now, South Africans will vote for individuals they know, not necessarily party deployees.
The current party system places the interests of the party ahead of the voters. MPs are accountable to the party, not to voters. They vote according to the party line. Within this system, it is not uncommon for an MP who is a resident of rural Eastern Cape to be deployed to a Soweto constituency he hardly knows.
In part, this party system has cultivated a culture of arrogance evident in the ANC. Few of the governing party’s senior MPs are facing disciplinary action for ignoring the party line.
The judgment is not only a victory for independents, but a win for citizens. In half of the available parliamentary seats, South Africans will have a wider choice of candidates and parties.
Voters will vote for people they know, instead of having candidates imposed by a political party. This is an important sign of our maturing democracy. Major parties will no doubt find the ruling an irritation. Thankfully, it cannot be appealed. The ruling paves the way for President Cyril Ramaphosa to announce the date of the 2024 general elections.
The ruling will pose a headache for parliament and the Electoral Commission (IEC), which has had its budget cut and claims to be ready to deliver credible general elections. Together with independents, the IEC needs to run an intensive voter education campaign to prepare voters for an effectively new electoral system of longer and multiple voters’ rolls. As pointed out by DA leader John Steenhuisen, parliament faces an administrative nightmare in accommodating independents in 2024.
Increasing funding for the IEC will help cure the headache.