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The National Assembly passed the Electoral Matters Amendment Bill on Tuesday, which seeks to amend the Political Party Funding Act of 2018 and align various pieces of legislation with the Electoral Amendment Act of 2023. The bill enables independent candidates to contest in elections for seats in the National Assembly and provincial legislatures and makes provision for independent candidates to declare their funding sources. Home Affairs Minister Aaron Motsoaledi introduced the Bill in December to regulate the private and public funding of independent candidates and representatives.
The legislation controversially changes the funding formula of how political parties and independents represented in legislatures receive allocations from state coffers. The bill proposes a change to the funding formula, which will allocate 90% of funds based on proportional representation and 10% on an equitable basis. The current Political Party Funding Act currently allocates 66.6% of funds on proportional representation and 33.3% on an equitable basis, meaning the new law would allocate more funds to the parties with the most seats while small parties' allocations would decline.
The National Assembly passed the Bill with 240 votes in favour and 90 against it. Opposition parties say the Bill is an attempt by the ANC to increase its share of funds and concerns about how it regulates the disclosure threshold and annual upper limits. Under current laws, parties must disclose donations above R100,000 and cannot accept more than R15-million a year from a single donor.
The portfolio committee rejected a proposal to allow the President to determine the disclosure threshold and upper limits, with critics saying it would give the President too much power. Under the Bill, the National Assembly will still decide when the President can amend the regulations on the disclosure threshold and upper limits, but according to non-profit organisation My Vote Counts, it has created a legal void.
The new legislation must be in place before the 29 May elections. Adrian Roos, a DA MP and Shadow Deputy Minister of Home Affairs, said the Bill was a crude attempt at directing more public and donor funds into the coffers of the ANC to help it try to cling to power. He added that under the new Bill, an extra R50-million will go to the ANC in the next year alone, while smaller parties’ allocations would be more than halved.
ANC’s alliance partner Cosatu welcomed the Bill, but said one critical amendment was needed and should be effected by Parliament. The provisions for thresholds below which donations need not be disclosed opens a massive and obvious gap for tenderpreneurs and other persons with criminal intent seeking to buy influence, to legally circumvent the progressive transparency and accountability objectives and provisions of the Act.
This article is republished from the Daily Maverick. Click here to read the full article.
