Electoral Bill: discussion

Meeting report

HOME AFFAIRS PORTFOLIO COMMITTEE
24 August 1998
ELECTORAL BILL: FINALISATION & VOTING

Documents handed out:
Amendments to Electoral Bill
Democratic Party Proposed Amendments
United Democratic Movement submission
Azapo submission

SUMMARY
All the clauses of the Electoral Bill were passed except for Clause 1.

With regard to Clause 1, the Democratic Party requested that the Home Affairs Ministry meet with the Committee (before the plenary debate on this Bill on 31 August 1998) to report on their Department's administrative capability to deliver outstanding barcode identity documents prior to the voter registration procedure. The National Party supported this request. After a brief caucus, the African National Congress agreed that this was a reasonable request.

DETAILED MINUTES
The Committee voted clause by clause on all 116 clauses and the three schedules as well as the proposed amendments. These were all agreed to. The following clauses indicate where there were objections or new changes made:
Clause 1
This was held over as the parties could not reach consensus on the need for bar-coded identity documents for voter registration. The National Party (NP) and Democratic Party (DP) do not agree with the African National Congress (ANC) that voter registration be restricted to holders of bar-coded identity documents only or to holders of temporary IDs (which are issued on application for a bar-coded ID).

The Democratic Party requested that the Home Affairs Ministry report on their administrative capability to deliver outstanding barcode identity documents prior to the voter registration procedure. The National Party requested that the Home Affairs Ministry provide an action plan if they do believe they are capable of delivery.

After a five-minute caucus, the ANC agreed that the Democratic Party's request was reasonable. The Ministry and the Committee must meet this week before the debate next Monday in the National Assembly.

Clause 14
The Pan Africanist Congress and the National Party voted against the amendment to Clause 14 which will do away with the 60-day notice requirement for proclaiming an election.

Though they accepted the need for this for the 1999 election timetable, they believed that the possibility of a surprise snap election should be removed from future elections thereafter. The IEC officials pointed out that there are enough safeguards built into the Bill to prevent a snap election and there are clear stipulations regarding the electoral timetable but their fears were not allayed.

The DP and ANC voted for the amendment and it was passed.

The amendment to the follow-up clause doing away with a 60-day notice period for provincial elections was voted upon similarly.

Clause 32
The DP's proposed amendment regarding special votes was rejected. The departmental proposed amendment was passed with only the DP objecting.

Clause 33 (new clause)
The IEC explained that the use of a declaration vote was an enabling provision empowering the IEC to make contingency arrangements for voters who would be disenfranchised due to administrative errors/problems.

The amendment was passed with the DP objecting.

Clause 37
With regard to the assistance of physically disabled voters, a new amendment was agreed upon in this meeting whereby the "or" was changed to "and".

Clause 45
The DP's proposed amendment was agreed to by all except that the word "reconciled" will be replaced by the word "compared". This amendment ensures that there be a reconciliation of the number of ballot papers issued with the number of ballot papers present in the ballot boxes before counting begins.

Clause 48
The DP's proposed amendment regarding the announcement of the number of ballot papers issued to a voting station [s 48(1)(a)], was agreed to by all.

Clause 105
The Democratic Party put forward their proposal regarding campaign funding. They proposed no up-front funding, 25% of the funds to be distributed equally to all parties who win at least one seat in the legislature. No party should receive more than 50% of the funds. They pointed out that the enhancement of multi-party democracy is to be served by this as required in s236 of the Constitution.

The ANC pointed out that they had withdrawn their amendment to this clause. All parties present were in agreement that there should be no up-front campaign funding. The committee chairperson, Mr D Lockey, said that proposals regarding the formula for the allocation of funding should not be dealt with in the Bill but should be referred to the special committee assigned this task.

Clause 116
All references to "from" were changed to "on".

Schedule 3
The DP's proposed amendment of reducing the number of National Assembly seats to 350 was voted on and rejected by all parties except the DP.

The four IEC officials (Kriegler, Lambani, Tredoux, v/d Merwe) were thanked for their assistance in facilitating discussion on this Bill.