Three opposition parties have raised objections to home affairs minister Aaron Motsoaledi’s list of nominated candidates for the Electoral Reform Consultation Panel, with two of them — the DA and IFP — voting against the list that will be submitted to the National Assembly for a vote on Thursday.
The panel will investigate alternative electoral systems and propose reforms before the 2029 national and provincial elections. Its establishment was provided for in the Electoral Amendment Act, which made legal provision for the inclusion of independent candidates in the election.
The method of their inclusion was hotly contested and there was a view that more comprehensive electoral reform was needed. The parliamentary home affairs committee introduced a clause in the act providing for the establishment of a panel that must be drawn from candidates nominated by the public.
The panel is required to submit its report 12 months after the 2024 elections.
Motsoaledi did not comply with the act’s requirement that the panel be established within four months of the commencement of the act in June 2023.
In November the home affairs committee rejected Motsoaledi’s proposed list of nominees because it was not sufficiently representative. It said another request for nominees had to be issued. A total of 32 nominees were received in response to various requests for nominations.
Motsoaledi’s final list of nine nominees — arrived at after consultation with the Electoral Commission of SA (IEC) and adopted by the committee on Tuesday — comprises Pansy Tlakula, a chair of the IEC from 2009 and 2014; lawyer and senior lecturer Mmatsie Mooki; capacity development adviser and previous IEC employee Tomsie Dlamini; academic, lawyer and previous civil servant Richard Sizani; former chair of the Municipal Demarcation Board and former eThekwini city manager Michael Sutcliffe; current IEC chief electoral officer Sy Mamabolo; former IEC senior manager Michael Hendrickse; deputy CEO of the IEC Norman du Plessis; and academic and researcher Albertus Schoeman.
Sizani has been designated to head the panel secretariat. Presenter to the committee Phelelani Khumalo said that given the anticipated volume of work, task teams would probably have to be appointed to complement the work of the secretariat.
One-dimensional
ANC MPs on the committee supported the list of nominees.
However, DA MP Adrian Roos said the list lacked diversity and was dominated by former government and IEC employees. “The list seems to be quite one-dimensional in terms of former government employees and misses the opportunity to bring in very important skills,” he said.
There was no civil society voice among the nominees, some of whom lacked election experience. The only three nominees on Motsoaledi’s list that the DA supported were Dlamini, Mamabolo and Schoeman.
Roos regretted the exclusion from the list of Terry Tselani, executive chair of the Institute of Election Management Services and former IEC deputy chair; as well as elections expert Michael Atkins; former Constitutional Court judge and former IEC chair Johann Kriegler; Letlhogonolo Letshele, an electoral systems researcher at My Vote Counts; and Joyce Pitso, who would bring election technology experience.
IFP MP Liezl van der Merwe objected to the lack of representation of women and youth on the nominated panel, which she said was a “missed opportunity” to bring fresh ideas about electoral reform to the table. She would have liked to see the inclusion of Tselani, Atkins, Pitso and Letshele, who would have represented civil society.
While the EFF didn’t object to the nominated list, EFF MP Thapelo Mogale had reservations about the inclusion of Tlakula, who he said had departed from the IEC in 2014 under a cloud.
He also supported the inclusion of Tselani.
Mogale noted the “glaring absence” of young people on the list and that of the nine nominees, only three were women.
Motsoaledi defended the nominated panel saying those on the list were experienced and had the required qualifications.
Committee chair Mosa Chabane recommended that the secretariat be expanded by the recruitment of young people.
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