Party Political funding: briefing by Minister of Constitutional Development

Chairperson: Mr N Nhleko

Minister V Moosa said that the Department could not come up with a fixed formula for this issue and had decided to give the matter to the President to decide. He spoke on equity and proportionality and said that in future there could be a proliferation of small parties emerging and equity and proportionality will have to be approached quite differently.

The Minister went on to say that he did not see himself as the Minister responsible to come up with policy on this matter and he did not intend drafting any policy. He however had discussed this matter with his Director General and the Director General had agreed to put forward draft regulations (not an official document) for the committee to use as a guideline.

He said he wanted this matter to be sorted out soon as he did not want it to be dealt with next year as it would be too close to elections. He said the department had put together 3 proposals. A question was put to him whether there would be any sort of campaign funding for parties and he said there would not be.

One of the department's legal adviser's, Mr Bruwer, gave the three options that the department had come up with. The minister said these were prepared only to facilitate discussion.

Options:

1.To separate national and provincial allocations

2. Not to separate national and provincial allocations

3. To use a weighted scale of representation, parties with certain thresholds should get a certain minimum amount

In all of the above options, parties will receive 10% and the remaining 90% will be allocated on the basis of the number of seats a party has.

The next meeting is on 2 September 1998.