Decreasing Voter Participation in South Africa and the Call for Electoral Reform through Allowing Independent Candidates

Abstract

Sections 1 and 19 of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa provides citizens the right to vote in free, fair and regular elections. The Electoral Act sets out the framework for and regulates national and provincial elections. Although South African elections are generally considered to be free and fair, voter registration and voter turnout has decreased since the first democratic election of 1994. This article considers the trends in voter participation in South Africa at a national level. It considers the various calls for electoral reform in light of the claim brought by New Nation Movement NPC to permit independent candidates to contest elections at national and provincial level.

In New Nation Movement NPC v President of the Republic of South Africa, the Constitutional Court declared relevant sections of the South African Electoral Act invalid as it does not allow for individual candidates in the national and provincial elections and therefore violated section 19(3)(b), read with section 18 of the Constitution. This decision is similar to a 2011 decision of the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights, where it was held that requiring candidates to form part of political parties to run for office is an unjustifiable restriction of citizen’s political participation in terms of the African Charter. This article considers the reasoning of the Constitutional Court in New Nation Movement in light of the jurisprudence of the African Court, and ultimately, to what extent an amendment to the Electoral Act in the terms prescribed by the Constitutional Court can address the decreasing participation rate in electoral processes.