Former Mayor of Johannesburg Herman Mashaba has hailed the Historical judgment by the apex constitutional court which declared the Electoral Act has unconstitutional!
Electioneering process is the core basis of any democracy, this means that this judgment has changed the entire political system, every South African has a right to run for public office as an independent.
In celebration to the Judgement outcome, Herman Mashaba listed out things that must be done to ensure the judgement is fully implemented.
Today’s judgement is a victory on the road towards electoral reform! But there is more that will need to be done to make sure Parliament amends the Electoral Act to create direct ACCOUNTABILITY for the voters of our country without sacrificing fairness.
Parliament must amend the Electoral Act to provide for a change to our electoral system. We want to see an amendment that creates a mixed electoral system, providing for at least half of the 400 seats to be directly elected through constituencies.
The problem is with MPs & current political parties, being completely opposed to any form of direct accountability.
The fallout they would experience from any form of direct accountability would be disastrous for them, given the poor calibre of candidates parties put forward.
This is why the political party that I am working to establish has placed electoral reform as one of our key values.
While we will push for these reforms in Parliament, we are going to live the principle of accountability internally.
Our party will commit to subject aspirant candidates to a system of primary elections, where members of the public will be able to vote for candidates from our party that they would like to see standing in their community when they go to the ballot box.
What arises form this is a much higher calibre of candidate, chosen by the residents of that area, to serve that community.
This same system will be used as a performance management system to hold candidates to account should they fail the residents who elected them.