Response: Independents Get Their Day

Yesterday’s Constitutional Court judgement paving the way for independent candidates to stand for seats in the National Assembly and provincial legislatures is the second in just under two years to assert the rights of the citizenry against the power of political parties. In June 2018 the Court ruled that people have the right to information about the funding of parties; now, it has ruled that the electoral monopoly hitherto enjoyed by parties is unconstitutional.
Parliament will have two years in which to amend the Electoral Act, meaning that individual citizens will be able to contest the general election scheduled for 2024 as independent candidates without party affiliation. The ruling does not apply to the municipal elections due in 2021.

Read more here: Independents Get Their Day 120620