Are independent candidates really independent?

Are independent candidates really independent?

For the first time in the history of democracy the ballot paper will include independent candidates who will run for national elections. However, a conundrum is facing the candidates, their ability to solicit signatures and galvanise votes will be tested in a few weeks.

South Africa’s political system is primarily designed for political parties, entering this space as an independent candidate will be a daunting task. Firstly, the threshold for independent candidates is 15 percent signatures of registered voters in the region they are running for elections.

According to the Electoral Amendment Act, candidates must gather 15 percent of the previous election’s quota in supporter signatures for a seat in national or provincial legislatures.

Prof. Godfrey Maringira, an Associate Professor in Social Anthropology and Head of Department: Human and Social Science at Sol Plaatjie University says given the challenges independent candidates are faced with, and as defined by the amendment act, philosophically, what does it mean to be an independent candidate?

“When it comes to the conceptualisation of an independent candidate, or trying to define who is an independent candidate, what makes an independent candidate independent?”

Maringira asks the question in sight of the amendment act, arguing that in many cases independent candidates are not independent. When they campaign do they do so independently or are there influences behind them?

The Prof. says the threshold for independent candidates also proves to be a challenge because they have to campaign twice within an election. Firstly, they must solicit signatures from registered voters to meet the 15 percent threshold. However, that does not mean that those people will actually vote for the independent candidate, people may be willing to support with their signatures but may not vote for the independent candidate.

Prof. Godfrey Maringira says considering the resources needed to mobilise signatures, some candidates may have the resources while others may not have to reach the threshold, which places a burden on the independent candidates because their neighbors may not be registered to vote, so they need resources to move around and get those signatures.

Since a signature is a private matter, some people may not feel comfortable in just giving their signatures, so independent candidates need to campaign for signatures; but that does not translate into votes. Maringira says the commercialisation of signatures is problematic for the candidates; though some may have resources, they may not have the more than 11 000 signatures needed to run in the Free State province because it is a challenge to even get 10 signatures.

The IEC has also put a time frame in which those signatures must have been submitted; so while campaigning for signatures, there is a deadline waiting for them putting more pressure on the candidates.

“The mobilisation of signatures, for me it is a mobilisation of an election within an election, you mobilise for signatures, but you are already mobilising for the elections, you are not just simply mobilising for signatures so that you get a nominee in the provincial election,” said Prof. Godfrey Maringira.

With just three weeks left to the national and provincial elections, independent candidates having gone through the daunting task of getting those signatures, now they have to compete with political parties who have the resources to put up posters everywhere, and run adverts on the different media platforms.

Judgement day is drawing closer by the day to find out whether the signatures they managed to mobilise will actually get them into parliament or provincial legislature.

Journalist

Related Articles

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *