The Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) welcomes the President, Cyril Ramaphosa’s signing of the Electoral Matters Amendment Bill into law.
Whilst COSATU welcomes the overall thrust of the Act, including its amendments recognising independent candidates contesting national and provincial elections as necessitated by the Constitutional Court judgement, we believe one critical amendment remains necessary and should be prioritised and considered by the 7th Parliament.
The Act provides for the President, in consultation with Parliament, to set thresholds below which donations to political parties and independent candidates need not be disclosed as well as caps on the limits of donations they can receive.
Whilst supporting the need for flexibility on caps on donations, 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 is dangerous given our painful experiences with state capture.
The thresholds below which donations need not be disclosed should be amended to require that all donations be publicly disclosed. This is critical if we are to remove the cancer of corruption from our body politic. Workers and the nation cannot afford the costs of corruption remaining ingrained across our political establishment and government.
The bleating of the Moonshine Coalition and a variety of 1% parties notwithstanding, the Federation supports the Act’s common-sense clauses providing for the principles of proportionality and the recognition that access to public funding and the public broadcaster by political parties and independent candidates must be based upon the support they receive from the electorate and the representation they are afforded in Parliament and Provincial Legislatures. The public purse is severely overstretched and cannot be treated as a slush fund by political parties unable to convince the public to support them.
Issued by COSATU.
For further information please contact:
Matthew Parks
Acting National Spokesperson & Parliamentary Coordinator
Cell: 082 785 0687