The Impact of the New Election Legislative Framework on Election Proceedings in South Africa

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23499348

PW Mabitsela¹, KC Khotsa², and MM Selepe³ (Department of Public Administration and Management, University of South Africa, Pretoria, South Africa^1,2 and Department of Public Administration, University of Limpopo, South Africa³)

The study examines the impact of the new legislative frameworks on election proceedings in South Africa. The main objective of the study is to assess the effects of the new Electoral Act of 2023 and look at how the new Election Bill will influence South Africa’s democracy in the future. The study adopted a qualitative research methodology with reference to a conceptual research approach relying heavily on secondary data. The study used multiple databases, including Google Scholar, Google, the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), Scopus, and repositories of higher education institutions, which were exhaustively searched electronically. The analysis of the collected data was conducted from these databases. The findings of the study include that the major change to the Electoral Act provides for the inclusion and nomination of independent candidates for roles in the National Assembly and provincial legislature. Secondly, the study revealed that according to a prior ruling in the case of New National Movement NPC and the Vice President of the Republic of South Africa and others, the Electoral Act of 1998 was unconstitutional because it required candidates for the National Assembly and provincial legislatures to be members of a political party. Another finding is that the South African Government’s National Assembly enacted the Electoral Amendment Bill in February after the Constitutional Court issued an order to change the law in June 2020. President Cyril Ramaphosa has signed the Electoral Amendment Bill into law. What does this mean? The implications were that independent candidates were permitted to stand in the 2024 provincial and national elections. Vincent Magwenya, the presidential spokesperson, stated that “the Electoral Amendment Bill marks a significant milestone in the evolution of our constitutional democracy by expanding electoral participation and widening the pool of leadership choice for the Nation and will be permitted to stand in the November 2026 local government elections.” Additionally, it was found that the new legislation offers a development that will only strengthen and maintain the South African democracy. The influence of the new electoral bill is the main topic of the article. What effects will the new electoral bill have on South Africa’s government? This article’s goal is to analyze how the new election bill will affect South Africa’s democracy in the future. Documentary analysis, which included reviews of published and unpublished documents, online media stories, political analysts’ blogs, and a literature study, was added to the data. The perspectives of political analysts and non-governmental organizations will be used to contribute new information to the study because there hasn’t been much written about this subject.