Deputy Speaker, we are also in support of the Bill and the persuasion to force all of us as political parties in a democracy to report and put in a proper record of our private funders. But there are two important things here that must be immediately put to the fore. The first one has to do with the fact that, in South Africa, majority of the time, to constitute a formidable campaign takes a lot of money.
This comes to close to saying that, there is a lot of co- modification of the very processes of the very processes of democratic elections which are seen in developed
countries. As a result, in most of the cases, the people with the most money happen to benefit because they can be able to push their favourite political parties. This is important because, in as much as money is important to constitute a political project, one's vote has to be informed not only by who puts money, but by the greater interests of the country.
The second challenge is that, smaller political parties' new entrance into the democratic space is often marginalised by the fact of funding. If in an economy like South Africa, where majority of the money is with the white minority, it means that smaller political parties that often want to look out for the best interest of smaller rural communities on one hand, or black people in general, don't get majority of the funding from wider white businesses.
So, what does this mean? It means if those black people who are funding black political parties get punished by the ruling party, the existing power dimensions in society will be reproduced, and also, existing political formation in society will be reproduced without a proper
challenge. So, this is something we all must be concerned of. Therefore, the Bill is not necessarily going to disrupt these realities.
We still need new mechanisms of disarticulating the rights to vote, the elections and the entire democratic process from the weight and the power of the rich, to not only buy political actors, but also to persuade legislative directions in most of the cases, like in the case of Spectrum Development or the allocation of spectra. So, in as much we welcome these developments, as the EFF, we will be the first ones to say who the private funders are.
We are still going through a challenge even under those conditions. We are still going to have a challenge of the fact that people who actually fund small political parties; they get punished by the state. The final point is a recommendation. We want to tell Business SA in general that, perhaps it's time that you don't choose one horse in a political race. It's time that they fund in the interest of supporting a democracy. [Applause.]
If they have R100 to give to political parties, they should distribute it like the Independent Electoral Commission, IEC, does, favouring everyone in the political spectra. Why? I am saying this because we see that people who put money, for example, in the CR17 campaign, are the first one to be considered when it comes to tenders and big state contracts. [Applause.]
To end that, they must not fund one person. Instead, they should put their money in the democracy fund established by the IEC, which will then be distributed to all the political parties. In that way, our democracy may function better, without the power and the greed of the capitalists who at the moment in society remain white and are just reproducing the status quo in as far as economic balance of forces are concerned.
The EFF supports the Bill. Thank you very much. [Applause.]