Floor crossing (South Africa)
Under Floor crossing one understood the possibility that members of the national Parliament or a provincial or municipal parliament the party switch and thereby were able to keep its headquarters in South Africa. Although this term is also common in other Commonwealth countries, became the South African variant in their specific practice of particular importance.
Background
The floor crossing was made possible by a constitutional amendment was made in 2002. Your background, this change in the then request the Democratic Alliance (DA, then from the Democratic Party (DP ) and New National Party ( NNP) consisting ) still be able to merge into a single party during that time legislature, which so far by banning Party crossings was excluded during this period. The ANC initially spoke out against this legislative initiative, as he cemented them as a race- and class-based opposition - in this case, the DA - looked at her.
The following political developments caused a change of mind at the ANC. The DA proved short-lived. In November 2001, the NNP got out of the DA, while the DP kept the new name for itself. The NNP now decided to enter into coalitions with the ANC, and the latter gave the floor crossing now have the opportunity to break the above cementation. In June 2002, the constitutional amendment was reality. The convergence of the NNP to the ANC meant the end of the former. In the national elections of 2004, she was with a result of 1.65 % to an insignificant on a regional level party and decided the following year, their self-dissolution, coupled with the conversion of most of NNP parliamentarians to the ANC.
The small party United Democratic Movement (UDM ) immediately brought a constitutional complaint, in which they topped that with the Floor crossing the will of the electorate is undermined, since this takes place through even before the next election crossings in a system based on proportional representation system no longer would find. Furthermore, there would also be a risk that large parties members of smaller parties could make a party crossing palatable better occupied posts.
The Constitution prescribed requirements for floor crossing
The floor crossing was possible under the following conditions:
- The About Treading had a member of the national parliament, to be a provincial or municipal parliament.
- The crossing had at least 10% of the seats of former party concern, so it had possibly several crossings take place at the same time.
- The transition had to take place September 15 and in the second or fourth year after the election in period 1.
Impact in the political process
The fear of the enemy that larger parties through the floor crossing could be even more powerful, proved to be true. This was also facilitated by the fact that by the 10 - % - seat minimum, the change from small parties out was much easier than larger ones. The number of seats the ANC in the South African Parliament grew after the election of 2004, following both time window of 2005 and 2007, from 279 to 297, the larger opposition parties, however, lost some seats. The Floor crossing enabled there also the attainment of seats by party start-ups, such as the IFP cleavage National Democratic Convention. A number of small parties that have won one or two seats in the national parliament during the time window from 2005 through defections, however, disappeared with the next window of time from 2007 back for the time being from there.
Floor crossing was a sensitive issue which was, among others, the subject of court cases in South Africa. In September 2007, there was even the arrest of five IFP local politicians on charges of attempted murder of a former IFP politician who had converted to ANC.
In January 2009, the possibility of floor crossing by a constitutional amendment was abolished.
Swell
The "Background" section is largely based on the document "Floor crossing briefing: legislative and political background, and the procedural framework" ( PDF) of the " Institute for Democracy in South Africa" ( IDASA )