SAVE THE DATE – 24 April

Please join My Vote Counts for the launch of our new campaign: “Intra-party democracy: How Democratic are You?”

As part of My Vote Counts’ (MVC) mission to enhance and promote accountability, transparency and inclusivity in South Africa’s political system, we are launching our campaign, “Intra-Party Democracy (IPD): How Democratic Are You?”

IPD is commonly referred to as a set of provisions a political party should institutionalise in order to allow members to fairly participate in the decision-making of their political party. At a minimum, an internally democratic political party’s structure should be decentralised to avoid the abuse of power at the central and/or national level of the party.

The provisions can be extended to include multiple criteria, allowing one to assess if and how a political party’s rules and practices conform to various democratic principles. Like many other political parties across the globe, South African political parties are often in the spotlight for the abuse of power by party bosses and the unfair, harsh and arbitrary disciplinary measures imposed on members.

Until recently, South Africa’s regulatory framework did not facilitate any access to information on political party’s private funding. However, civil society and the media have made significant gains in exposing the dangers to our democracy if political parties can withhold information on their private funding. The transparency of political parties’ private funding is one of the various criteria a political party must fulfil in order to operate openly, fairly and with accountability. MVC will now raise awareness beyond merely exposing issues of political parties’ private funding, and also focus on how the abuse of power manifests when the internal operations of political parties are not thoroughly scrutinised.

At the launch we will share the extensive IPD criteria we have identified in order to comprehensively evaluate a political party. These criteria include membership audits, intra-party elections, public representative nominations, policy-making and political party constitutions, member’s rights, party discipline, transparency and accountability.

Further, MVC will share our initial findings regarding IPD in South Africa’s four largest political parties as represented in the National Assembly and the challenges we have faced in the research process to inform our evaluations. A key message MVC will share is that more effective investigation and insight into how a political party functions internally, is a useful indicator of how that party may or does perform in public institutions.

We are extending this invitation to civil society, representatives of political parties, the media and other interested parties and we sincerely hope you will be able to join us.

Event details:

Date: Wednesday 24 April 2019

Time: 10h00 – 12h00. Please note there will be coffee and tea available from 09h30 and a light lunch after the programme ends.

Venue: Cape Town CBD; will be confirmed soon.

Please RSVP by Friday 12th of April to Amanda at amanda@myvotecounts.org.za

Visit this page for more info.