New law on way to allow independent candidates to serve as MPs and MPLs

PARLIAMENT is bracing itself to pass a new law that would allow independent candidates to contest elections for seats in the National Assembly and provincial legislatures.

This comes after Minister in the Presidency Mondli Gungubele said yesterday, during a media briefing, that the Cabinet had backed a report that would go to Parliament for the processing of the electoral laws.

The Constitutional Court ruled last year that independent candidates could also contest elections at national and provincial levels. But the New Nation Movement had taken the matter to the highest court in the land after the high court rejected its application.

The law currently only allows political parties to send public representatives to Parliament and the provinces.

But independent candidates could become MPs and MPLs if the new law is passed. This would be the first time in the country's democracy that independent candidates would be able to serve in the National Assembly and provincial legislatures in the nine provinces.

Gungubele said Parliament would have to process the report after the Cabinet endorsed it. “The Cabinet approved that the report of the ministerial advisory committee on electoral system reforms be submitted to Parliament. The electoral reforms were initiated after the Constitutional Court judgment declared in 2020 that the Electoral Act was unconstitutional as it only provided for the elections of members of the National Assembly and provincial legislatures to be done through political parties.

“The ministerial advisory committee presents policy options that can remedy the unconstitutional aspects of the Electoral Act of 1998,” said Gungubele.