Parliament passes amended election legislation
The National Assembly on Tuesday passed the Electoral Matters Amendment Bill.
The bill seeks to change the funding formula of political parties and independents represented in the legislature receive funding from the government.
It was introduced by Home Affairs Minister Aaron Motsoaledi in December 2023 to bring several laws in line with the amended Electoral Act (2023), adopted by the Portfolio Committee on Home Affairs and waiting to be signed into law.
It also makes provision for independent candidates to be able to declare their funding sources.
A total of 240 MPs voted in favour of the bill, while 90 voted against it.
The ANC, EFF and NFP voted in favour of the bill, while the DA, IFP, FF Plus, ACDP, UDM, GOOD Party, Cope and PAC voted against it.
The bill will now be sent to the National Council of Provinces for concurrence.
Motsoaledi told MPs that the amendments were necessary to accommodate independent candidates.
"Most of the amendments are technical in that the word independent, candidate or independent representative are inserted in the act, alongside the word political party.
However, when it comes to the Political Party Funding Act, more needs to be done to accommodate independents so that they, too, can be funded for their political activities and for participating in the provincial and national elections.
The original formula that was used when the Political Party Funding Act was passed was done when there were no independent candidates; now that we have independents, we strongly believe that the formula cannot be the same," said Motsoaledi.
While the bill was passed with an overwhelming majority, opposition parties accused the ANC of hijacking the bill to include amendments that undermine multi-party democracy.
They accused the ANC of fiddling with the allocation of public funding to political parties and independents, violating the constitution and multi-party democracy values.
The bill removes the threshold for declaring donations (currently R100 000) and the upper limit for accepting donations (currently R15m).
The president will now have the prerogative to decide the limits and thresholds following a resolution from Parliament.
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