If independent candidates are allowed to contest the national and provincial elections in 2024 and garner 1-million votes while the threshold to get a seat in parliament is 50,000 votes, 950,000 of their votes may be thrown into the rubbish bin.

That is if the Electoral Act Amendment Bill in its current form is signed into law by President Cyril Ramaphosa after the deadline in two months’ time.

This is but one of the reasons civil society organisations this week decided to move to high gear in their offensive to campaign against the bill becoming law.

The bill emanates from a ground-breaking apex court order delivered in 2020 compelling lawmakers to amend the Electoral Act to allow for independents to contest elections in 2024.

The minister of home affairs Aaron Motsoaledi, as mandated by law, submitted a draft bill to parliament earlier this year, which was largely rejected by several civil society organisations while finding favour in the ANC benches.

Civil society has argued that the bill in its current form will be nothing close to meeting the outcomes intended by the Constitutional Court ruling which is opening up the political space for all citizens to stand for public office at the highest level without belonging to a political party.

At an event at the Anglican Church in Parktown, Johannesburg, on Monday, a group of leading civil society organisations sent a warning shot to all 400 MPs individually in the form of an email telling them why they believe it would be wrong to give the bill a green light.

The message, in the form of a video from a speech delivered by anti-apartheid activist Valli Moosa, informs lawmakers of the “dangerous situation” the country may find itself in should the bill be passed.

“The new electoral system under consideration by parliament at present should alarm all of us. Let me talk about why I believe that the electoral system being considered by parliament right now is a disaster in waiting,” said Moosa.

“This is not a multi-member constituency system as some of its proponents have argued. This proposed system goes against the principle of proportional representation. What it does is that, when an independent candidate in the Eastern Cape gets 500,000 votes, 450,000 of those votes will be discarded and thrown away.

“There is a principle in our system that says ‘one person, one vote of equal value’ and that is a very important principle of our struggle.

“This new proposed system takes that away because if 500,000 people in the Eastern Cape vote for an independent, they only get one person. If 500K people vote for the EFF in the same province, they will get about eight or nine members of parliament in.”

This situation, said Moosa, will make a mockery of the principle of one person one vote of equal value “and I cannot for the life of me see the Constitutional Court saying that this passes constitutional muster, it will be shot down”.

Should MPs not reject the bill in its current form, Moosa warned, the country will fall off the cliff like “a person driving a truck but has fallen asleep behind the wheel because you are fiddling with the most important right in our constitution — the right to vote”.

NGOs such as Defend Our Democracy, Rivonia Circle, the Kathrada Foundation, Helen Suzman Foundation, Casac and others have vowed to go on an aggressive campaign countrywide to ensure Ramaphosa does not give the bill the green light.

Ramaphosa is due to sign or reject the bill on December 10 — international human rights day and six days before his party’s national elective conference where he is seeking a second term.

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