Home » Media Centre » Blogs » On the Continual Extension of dates for Party Hopping
The Elections Act 2011 required that parties submit their party lists, and nominees for elected posts to the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission three months before the nomination of a candidate, and that party lists be submitted three months before the election.
The exact reading of section 28 of the Act, “A political party that nominates a person for any election under this Act shall submit to the Commission a party membership list of the party at least three months before the nomination of the candidate.” While section 34 (8) of the Elections Act requires that person who is nominated by a political party under subsection (2), (3) and (4) shall have been a member of the political party for at least three months preceding the submission of the party list by the political party.”
The implication of the Act in its original form would be that if the election is to be held on March 4 2013, any person who intended to contest in the election would have to be a member of the sponsoring party by 4th October, and that the final party lists be submitted by 4th December 2012. While the Act did not make explicit the bar on changing parties, if the law where to be followed as intended, it would have meant that no MP would have been able to change parties past 4th October 2012.
This intention has obviously been flouted. In October 2012 Parliamentarians passed the Election Act Amendment Bill that extended the period for party hopping to January 4th 2013. And just yesterday the 4th January 2013 deadline for party hopping was once again extended by 14 days when the President assented to the Miscellaneous Law Amendment Bill 2012.
Party hopping in the advent of an election is hardly a new phenomenon; however it is one driven more by personal interest, than specific policy positions. Party hopping not only creates uncertainty but also creates an environment in which electoral corruption thrives. The Election Act in its original form was to cure this and create some certainty. This is no longer the case.
At this point it is anyone’s guess why Parliament makes laws only to change them whenever it is politically expedient for them to do so. Members of Parliament have amended the party hopping provisions of the Election Act not once but twice. Apart from maintaining social cohesion laws are supposed to check government power and facilitate planning and realisation of expectations. The law achieves none of these goals if National Assembly can amend the law at any time to suit their whims.
Also what happened to the requirement that MPs relinquish their seats, if they changed political party’s mid-term?
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