The United Democratic Movement, which last year blocked the implementation of floor-crossing legislation, could be one of the key victims when the legislation finally goes on to the statute book.
The Bill is likely to be signed into law in the third week of March.
Last June the UDM halted the implementation of the legislation in an urgent interdict in the Cape High Court. The matter was referred to the Constitutional Court, which ruled that the legislation required technical amendment.
UDM leader Bantu Holomisa has admitted that the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa Fourth Amendment Bill shuts the door to another challenge.
While MPs in all parties are keeping their cards close to their chests, the UDM’s 14-member parliamentary caucus could suffer a number of losses.
Salam Abram, UDM caucus chairperson, has been making increasingly pro-African National Congress noises in parliamentary speeches.
Chief whip Cedric Frolick, former Unitra professor Lucas Mbadi and national treasurer Tommy Abrahams are rumoured to be unhappy.
Deputy leader Gerhard Koornhof wrote in a confidential document on potential Afrikaans support for the party that many Afrikaners were scared ‘when they hear about … lack of discipline, unruly congresses, waves of disciplinary actionâ€.
The UDM’s parliamentary caucus has suffered steady leakage since 1999. Founder member Roelf Meyer was the first MP to leave in 2000. He was followed by Eastern Cape chairperson Chief Dumisani Qwadiso, now an ambassador; Chief Ndaba Mtirara, now on the ANC benches in Bisho; former national chairperson Masilo Mabetha, now a government consultant; and former National Party minister Sam de Beer, now an ANC member of the Gauteng legislature.
A spate of fresh defections would reflect much wider disarray in the party.
Former UDM spin doctor and founding member Pieter van Pletzen recently announced that 11 key Western Cape leaders and 14 branch executives had crossed to the ANC. He cited internal corruption.
Holomisa disputes some of these defections, including that of fundraiser Chris van der Westhuizen.
‘I will sign a declaration that I’ve left,†said Van der Westhuizen. The ANC has announced subsequently that 63 Umtata members have crossed.
Holomisa made light of these developments, arguing that ‘the UDM machinery in the Western Cape is still intact … we have not even been shaken by thatâ€. Referring to reports of other defections he added, ‘I don’t even know some of them.â€