It’s not enough that the ANC has tinkered with the Electoral Matters Amendment Bill to ensure a greater piece of the funding pie; it’s now also subverting the aims of the Political Party Funding Act.
The act is designed to ensure transparency in party donations and prevent outsize influence of political donors on party policy.
First, the party slipped a clause into the electoral matters bill that would change the formula for party funding from the Represented Political Parties Fund. The bill aims to provide for the inclusion of independent candidates in the country’s elections. The additional clause changes the party funding formula to benefit the ANC. Instead of two-thirds of funds split between parties on the basis of proportional representation in the legislature and one-third equitable share, it proposed a 90:10 split. That would garner it an extra R50m-odd.
Now, sister publication Business Day reports that the ANC is asking donors to make payments just below the R100,000 disclosure threshold so that the party doesn’t have to declare them to the Electoral Commission of South Africa. This is a strategy also used by the EFF. Its leader, Julius Malema, has urged donors to give it less than this amount to evade declaration.
The ANC has long been unhappy with the limits set in the Political Party Funding Act, finding they have a chilling effect on its ability to raise funds. In the absence of changing the legislation, the party is now circumventing it as it desperately tries to raise cash for its election campaign.
It speaks to a movement that is happy to sacrifice democratic principle for political gain. But, then, are we really surprised?
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