STEVEN FRIEDMAN: New bill is a crucial opportunity for citizen activists to clean up democracy in SA
So far, citizen activists have fought the symptoms of the harm money does to politics here. Now they can tackle the causes — and make more of a difference than any of the campaigns against state capture. The opportunity has been created by the publication of a draft Political Party Funding Bill by an ad hoc parliamentary committee. The draft would force parties to disclose where they get their money and set up a multiparty democracy fund which would distribute funding among parties. But its details are far less important than the fact that it has been published for comment. This signals that Parliament’s committee believes a law should be passed but has not made its mind up on details and is open to persuasion. It also means there is no firm decision yet by Parliament to pass a law. This sets two tasks for citizen activism — to ensure a law is passed and that its wording meets citizens’ needs. Much is at stake. It has become routine to point out that using money to ensure that gover...
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