Newsdeck

Newsdeck

Cope’s Lekota to introduce bill to allow independents to run for Parliament

Cope leader Mosiuoa Lekota has gazetted his intention to introduce a private member's bill that seeks to allow people not representing a political party to be elected to provincial legislatures and Parliament.

This follows a recent ruling of the Constitutional Court, which found that “every adult citizen may in terms of the Constitution stand as an independent candidate to be elected to municipalities, provincial legislatures or the National Assembly”.

“The enjoyment of this right is not and has not been proscribed by the Constitution. It is just not facilitated by legislation. But that does not mean that the right is not available to be enjoyed by whoever might have lost confidence in political parties. It does, in my view, remain open to be exercised whenever so desired, regardless of whatever logistical constraints might exist,” the ruling reads.

In his notice, which was published in Friday’s Government Gazette, Lekota noted that the current electoral system for the National Assembly and provincial legislatures is one in which political parties, and not individuals, contest elections.

“Each party is allocated a number of seats in the National Assembly and provincial legislatures calculated according to a formula contained in schedule 1A of the Electoral Act, 1998 (Act No. 73 of 1998), reflecting as closely as possible the proportion of votes that party obtained in the general elections,” Lekota wrote.

“Each party determines which of its members fill the seats so allocated. While there are some advantages of such a system, there are also some weaknesses such as: a lack of accountability of members of the relevant legislatures to its voters; alienation of voters from the political system; and no provision is made for the voting public to vote for individual members – there is merely a link between the public and political parties.”

Lekota’s draft bill, the Electoral Laws Amendment Bill, will seek to amend the Electoral Commission Act, 1996, to provide for and to regulate independent candidacy.

It will also seek to amend the Electoral Act to give full effect to section 19(3)(b) of the Constitution, which provides that every South African citizen has the fundamental right to stand for public office and, if elected, to hold office, to ensure that individuals can stand for office as independent candidates without belonging to a party and to promote democratic governance and electoral accountability.

Interested parties and institutions are invited to submit written representations on the proposed content of the draft bill to the Speaker of the National Assembly by January 21, 2019.

Gallery

Please peer review 3 community comments before your comment can be posted

X

This article is free to read.

Sign up for free or sign in to continue reading.

Unlike our competitors, we don’t force you to pay to read the news but we do need your email address to make your experience better.


Nearly there! Create a password to finish signing up with us:

Please enter your password or get a sign in link if you’ve forgotten

Open Sesame! Thanks for signing up.

We would like our readers to start paying for Daily Maverick...

…but we are not going to force you to. Over 10 million users come to us each month for the news. We have not put it behind a paywall because the truth should not be a luxury.

Instead we ask our readers who can afford to contribute, even a small amount each month, to do so.

If you appreciate it and want to see us keep going then please consider contributing whatever you can.

Support Daily Maverick→
Payment options

Become a Maverick Insider

This could have been a paywall

On another site this would have been a paywall. Maverick Insider keeps our content free for all.

Become an Insider

Every seed of hope will one day sprout.

South African citizens throughout the country are standing up for our human rights. Stay informed, connected and inspired by our weekly FREE Maverick Citizen newsletter.