MPs, MPLs and municipal councillors will be able to defect to another party without losing their seats from Friday when the 15-day period for crossing the floor opens.
President Thabo Mbeki signed the package of four defections bills into law on Wednesday night and a special government Gazette will be published on Thursday, said presidential representative Bheki Khumalo.
There was initial confusion in government circles on when the window period would open, with some believing it would be on the day of publication in the Government Gazette.
However, government legal advisers and opposition party lawyers told Sapa on Wednesday night the window period would in fact only open the day after the gazetting, namely, Friday.
The defection legislation is in line with an NNP request to the ANC to enact such legislation more than six months ago after the NNP withdrew from its alliance with the Democratic Party.
The DA, comprising the NNP, DP and Federal Alliance, fought the local government election as a registered party.
After its split from the DA, the NNP was left without any councillors and needed floor-crossing legislation to allow members at local level trapped within the DA to walk over without losing their seats.
However, it is by no means clear that NNP-aligned councillors will in fact exercise the option and many are expected to remain in the DA.
The UDM is still considering a Constitutional Court challenge and its national management committee is scheduled to meet on Saturday to discuss the issue.
Ironically, the window period will come into effect on the day that NNP leader Marthinus van Schalkwyk is sworn in as Western Cape premier on Friday.
Van Schalkwyk’s decision to accept the premiership was viewed by his detractors as an acknowledgement that a national cabinet post was not in the offing as originally expected.
This was further fuelled by the decision to move NNP MP Cobus Dowry, also tipped for some sort of national cabinet seat, as Western Cape Local Government MEC.
The NNP and the ANC have a power-sharing pact in the Western Cape which the premiership going to the NNP, and the unicity mayor to the ANC.
The ANC and NNP need only 24 councillors to defect to either party, to wrest control of the unicity from the DA.
The ANC has acknowledged that the defection legislation was ”politically expedient” to resolve the DA/NNP problem.
The legislation has been labelled as unprincipled by those parties opposed to it, including the UDM, IFP, PAC, ACDP and others.
The DP, which had strong reservations about the legislation, nevertheless voted in favour saying that it did not want to be accused of opposing it because it feared losing elected representatives to other parties.
It also needs the legislation so that it and the FA can be officially recognised as the DA in Parliament, where both parties are technically separate as they fought the national elections under their own names.
At least two of DP MPs, including DA rising star Raenette Taljaard, were opposed to the legislation and boycotted the vote in the National Assembly.
Taljaard was disciplined and forced to apologise to her party caucus. A number of NNP MPs are expected to cross the floor to the DA.
The DA and the IFP have agreed not to poach each other’s elected members.
At least one MP, the Afrikaner Eenheidsbeweging’s sole MP Cassie Aucamp, is expected to cross the floor to a yet to be established party.
The new legislation allows MPs to defect to a new party and Aucamp is set to establish his at the weekend. – Sapa