The African Christian Democratic Party takes note of the IEC report, indicating the amount that it disbursed to political parties in terms of the Political Party Funding Act, which was significantly higher than in previous years. This funding, we believe, is necessary to enable political parties to compete to some degree on a level playing field as certain parties receive donations running into millions of rands from private companies. It is also necessary to enhance our multi-party democracy as required by Section 236 of the Constitution, as it costs millions of rands to run a party and conduct an election campaign effectively.
While the ACDP welcomes the funding, we totally reject the proposed change to the party funding formula as contained in the Electoral Matters Amendment Bill. This opportunistic move by the ANC is in extreme bad faith and will result in most parties losing almost half of their funding, with the ANC receiving a staggering extra R52 million. The ACDP and other parties have petitioned the President not to sign the bill into law, as this greedy ANC move poses a grave threat to our multi-party democracy.
It is yet another reason to reject the ANC on the 29th of May and to vote for the ACDP.
