WHY PASS THE FLOOR-CROSSING LEGISLATION NOW?

INDEPENDENT-ON-SATURDAY O8 June 2002

NKONZO MQADI
{Speaker's Corner}

SOUTH Africa's Constitution is regarded as among the best in the world, but some institutions that underpin it are debatable. Parliament has devoted time to lengthy deliberations on a package of legislation, to allow public representatives at all three government tiers to change party allegiance. At present, crossing the floor is iorbidden by the existence of the Anti-Defection clause in the Constitution.

But is the civil society aware that, there's an enactment of the floor-crossing window period that is due to start on June 18 this year? Does the country as this stage of our political development, need to foster far-reaching changes to the 1996 Constitution?

The proposed legislation highlights some fundamental questions to our fledgling democracy. Were it not for the grumblings within the DA, leading to the withdrawal of the NNP and the formation of the alliance between the ANC and the NNP in the Western Cape, our law-makers would not be rushing this legislation.

Commentators argue that allowing members of the legislature to defect brings South Africa in line with other democracies and allows for fluid politics.
ANC chairman Mosiua Lekota is on record as saying the ANC has been discussing the defection clause for some months.
Are the political motives behind these constitutional changes benign or driven by political expediency?
Looking at the fall-out among senior leaders in the Western Cape, crossing the floor in that region makes politics more interesting. But, permitting politicians to change parties would disturb the electoral balance chosen by the electorate.

For some time now, the current form of proportional representation has been under scrutiny.

The purpose ot this Draft BTH is to amend Section 23a of Schedule 2 of the Constitution, in order to enable a member of a legislature to become a member of another party while retaining membership of that legislature.
There are areas of concern where it is felt that this defection legislation could directly impact on issues that are integral to our democracy The greatest area of concern is the constitutionality of the changes to the Constitution.
Since the Constitution is silent on floor crossing at local government level, wouldn't Section 157 of the Constitution, when read together with the Municipal Systems Act, jeopardise the guaranteed fair proportio­nality in the councils?
The other crucial issue is the possible-effect this law could have on electoral aspects. The proportional representation list system, in tandem with the Anti-Defection Clause, is highly effective for the purposes of party discipline.

As this draft legislation allowing MPs, MPLs and councillors to defect to other parties without losing their seats affects their respective constituencies, have all the stakeholders affected by this proposed legislation been consulted?

Perhaps a move away from a pure proportional based system aided by the defection legislation, could be beneficial to our maturing democracy.
One would propose a constituent-based system with mixed proportional representation. Maybe this would encourage greater accountability to voters because there would be some direct link between the area and an individual MP.
Consequently MPs won't be subject to the kind of party discipline that is found in a pure proportional representation system.
They could cross the floor or vote against their party without risking them seats in parliament.

Whatever the guiding principles, politics could be interesting through the drama of defections. This legislation must not be allowed to become a tool serving short-term political opportunism, but must surpass any short-term benefits made through political expediency.

□ Nkonzo Mqadi is a Durban-based freelance writer