Political parties call for evaluation of SA's voting system

The issue came up at an election dialogue hosted by the Democracy Development Program with 13 different political parties participating last night.

 Several parties agreed that there are some loopholes in the proportional representation system. 

The NFP's Zandile Myeni says people should be able to vote for candidates instead of the party nominating candidates. 

"You find that people nominated by parties end up not doing the work properly because they are only looking at their political party because they were deployed there and they forget about the people," she said. 

The ANC's Nontembeko Boyce says there are areas that need improvement. 

"The NGC of the ANC has agreed that when the African National Congress is going to it's policy conference next year - we must look closely into how we can make the IEC more effective," she said. 

The IEC has confirmed that the NFP has approached it with new evidence that could see the party contesting the upcoming local government elections. 

The NFP was meant to approach the Constitutional Court on Monday in a bid to have the IEC's decision to ban the party from contesting the elections reversed. 

The party was barred after failing to submit its registration fee on time. 

The IEC's Kate Bapela says the commission will not disclose details on the nature of the new evidence.

"The leadership of the IEC is busy going through it only as and when that has been dealt with then we can disclose what the details are all about. At the moment, I am not able to disclose the details but certainly we have received correspondence as the IEC from the NFP," she said. 

(File photo)