The symposium will is set to reflect on the country’s Political Party Funding Act and explore whether the Commission should be granted more authority to police political party funding.

Implemented in 2021, the Political Party Funding Act aims to enhance transparency and accountability in both public and private funding of political parties, with the ultimate goal of preventing undue influence and political capture.

The Durban gathering will bring together policymakers, civil society, and international experts to assess the effectiveness of the Act and consider global best practices.

One of the key questions on the table is whether the IEC, in its current structure, has sufficient powers to enforce the Act and take action against non-compliant parties. George Mahlangu from the IEC raised concerns over the limitations of the current arrangement.

"In other countries, there are two separate institutions. There's an institution that does the registration of political parties and the political funding, and then there's an elections management body which does elections and elections only," Mahlangu said.

“Now, in those instances, you find that the political parties that transgress the law get deregistered by the body that registered them initially.”

Mahlangu highlighted the dilemma within SA’s setup, where political parties are registered through the IEC’s electoral operations under the Electoral Act, but not specifically through the political funding unit.

“If they transgress the law, is the political funding unit the right unit to deregister the political party?” he asked.

--SABC/ChannelAfrica--