The South African Cabinet resolved on Wednesday that an Act of Parliament be processed urgently by the departments of home affairs and justice and constitutional development to govern next year’s national election.
Cabinet spokesperson Joel Netshitenzhe told a media briefing after Wednesday’s cabinet meeting chaired by Acting President Jacob Zuma in Cape Town that President Thabo Mbeki was empowered to call an election ”which is normally done three or four months” before the election.
He was asked whether an election could be expected ahead of the 27 April 2004 anniversary of 10 years of non-racial democracy.
He said it was expected that President Mbeki would make an announcement about the nature and scope of the celebrations of the anniversary — rather than a date for the election — during his budget vote in the National Assembly next week.
A new electoral law is needed as the law which governed the 1999 national and provincial election was deemed by the Constitution to have expired at that election.
The new law would, said Netshitenzhe, follow the recommendations of the minority report of the Electoral Task Team supporting the retention of the current proportional representation system.
The task team headed by Dr Frederik van Zyl Slabbert, a former opposition leader, proposed a change in the electoral system to include multi-member constituencies. – I-Net Bridge