OUTA has joined a collective call by civic society to meet with Minister of Home Affairs Dr Leon Schreiber to raise concerns about the inadequacy of the new electoral reform panel.

“The process of setting up the panel was dragged out during the 6th administration and we can’t afford to have the next five years wasted with an inadequate panel,” says Dr Rachel Fischer, OUTA’s Parliamentary Engagement and Research Manager. “We want civil society representation on that panel.”

The 22 civil society organisations, including OUTA, have written to the minister asking for a meeting to discuss the problematic panel. These organisations have been advocating for meaningful electoral reform since 2020.

Although the Electoral Amendment Act of 2023 did not include the extensive reforms which civil society advocated for to allow for more direct accountability over politicians for voters, it does enable the reconsideration of the electoral system ahead of the 2029 elections. This includes the establishment of the electoral reform panel, which must investigate, consult on and recommend electoral reforms, but that panel is currently inadequate.

“We wish to express our concerns about the composition and functioning of the Electoral Reform Consultation Panel,” says the letter to the minster. 

Statutory deadlines on the panel were ignored.

“The previous Minister delayed the selection of nominees beyond the period stipulated by the Act, and the Home Affairs Portfolio Committee in December 2023 resolved to solicit additional nominations, again delaying matters,” said the letter. This meant that work the panel was due to complete before the May 2024 elections was apparently not done.

The panel omits civil society representatives, but includes an over-representation of current or former Electoral Commission members, and three members who are regarded by civil society as being biased against meaningful electoral reform.

The letter points out that “none of the civil society representatives whom we had nominated, including those whose names were initially tabled before the Portfolio Committee, made it to the final selection. Notwithstanding their proven skills, knowledge and expertise on electoral reform and electoral systems generally, nominations from a range of civil society organisations were seemingly ignored.”

Despite these problems, the organisations intend to engage fully in the public participation processes of the panel, irrespective of its composition. “This includes ensuring that the process towards electoral reform is truly consultative, participatory, and allows for the views of the ordinary public to be heard,” says the letter.

OUTA calls on the public to follow this process and get involved in any further public participation processes, as this issue is crucial to building accountability and democracy.

“Our electoral system has not enabled true constituency based representativeness of our political leaders and has been a matter that we have discussed and debated for far too long. We need to drive greater public interest and participation in the democratic voting processes if we are to see meaningful reform of our electoral system, and this bus needs to get started as soon as possible,” says Fischer.

More information

A soundclip with comment by Dr Rachel Fischer, OUTA Parliamentary Engagement and Research Manager, is here.

A copy of the letter to the minister is here.

The May 2024 statement by a group of civil society organisations, including OUTA, raising concern about the problems with the electoral reform consultation panel, is here and OUTA’s statement in November 2023 is here.

More on OUTA’s work on electoral reform is here.