Opposition is mounting against the Electoral Amendment Bill passed by the National Assembly last week as former president Thabo Mbeki, over the weekend, joined electoral reform campaigner Valli Moosa and other prominent public figures in criticising the ANC for putting its own interests above democracy.
The Act was amended in a rushed process by Parliament after a ruling by the Constitutional Court in June 2020 that it must make provision for independent candidates to stand for election in line with the Bill of Rights, which says all citizens have a right to stand for election.
The ANC pushed through the amendment in parliament with the help of other parties, which will make minimal change to the system, and keeps the party-list proportional representation system largely intact.
Speaking at the annual general meeting of the Strategic Dialogue Group (SDG) on Saturday, Mbeki said he was appalled by ANC leaders who suggested that the party designs electoral policy to ensure it wins elections.
“When the matter was discussed at the national executive committee (NEC) not long ago, you have members of the NEC of the ANC saying we must write the electoral law so that the ANC wins. Comrades cited examples to reinforce this point. How can the ANC design electoral policy so that it wins? ANC must design an electoral policy to advance the democratic revolution,” Mbeki said.
He said electoral policy discussions indicated the ANC’s lack of leadership.
“It tells you something about what happened to our leadership where you have people sitting in the national executive committee who think the ANC can design policies just to benefit itself,” the former president said.
