The non-profit organisation My Vote Counts has argued that South African voters are entitled to full transparency about the funding of political parties. (Illustration: Lisa Nelson) 
The Western Cape Division of the High Court has dismissed the civil society organisation My Vote Counts’ (MVC’s) court challenge of the constitutionality of the Political Party Funding Act. The organisation is now considering taking the matter to the Constitutional Court.
The lawsuit, brought to court in February, sought to force full disclosure of all political donations, arguing that even small donations could sway political parties.
The court ruled that this argument was speculative and not backed by solid evidence.
According to the judgment, delivered on Thursday, 21 August by Judge Nathan Erasmus, with judges Melanie Holderness and Hayley Slingers concurring: “The applicant [MVC] requires that all donations be disclosed because the aggregate thereof can affect party behaviour. The relief sought in this regard is defective as it relies on speculation in the absence of established facts.
“Furthermore, the Electoral Commission publishes the sum of small donations received by a political party each year. Thus, a voter can ascertain how much a political party receives in small donations. This is not good enough for the applicant, who wants the identity of the donors to be disclosed without showing why this disclosure is necessary for the exercise or protection of constitutional rights.”
When the court action was launched, the disclosure threshold was R100,000, and the annual limit for private donations was R15-million.
However, President Cyril Ramaphosa last week doubled the disclosure threshold to R200,000 and the annual limit for private donations to R30-million.
MVC said it would formally ask Ramaphosa to release the full record of the considerations behind his decision.
MVC’s Joel Bregman said, “It’s clear that this is going to deepen secrecy around political funding; it’s obvious that’s the immediate effect — and when we have a country where we should be pushing towards greater transparency in our political funding space to ensure accountability, to ensure that corruption isn’t happening, that undue influence isn’t being exerted by private interests on our politics…”
Theoretically, individuals or a group of connected companies owned by the same people can make repeated donations just under the R200,000 disclosure threshold, which could add up to millions of rands that are hidden from the public.
Political party funding transparency is a long-standing issue in South Africa and is closely linked to the country’s history of corruption and State Capture. This connection was made clear in the findings of the Zondo Commission, which showed how influence can be bought and how that can corrupt government tenders and democratic processes.
In the first volume of the commission’s report, then acting Chief Justice Raymond Zondo stressed the need to strengthen legislation on political party financing. The report stated: “It is a matter of extreme concern that the evidence given at the commission establishes a link between the corrupt grant of tenders and political party financing. Such a link can represent an existential threat to our democracy.”
After the release of that report, Ramaphosa pledged that the ANC would support the government in taking all the necessary steps to eliminate the conditions and practices that allowed State Capture and systemic corruption to thrive.
By raising the donation disclosure threshold, the ANC appears to be backtracking on that commitment.
Local government elections
The increase in the disclosure threshold comes ahead of the 2026 local government elections, when political parties will need significant funding for campaigning, building grassroots support and managing election logistics.
The ANC has faced ongoing financial difficulties, struggling to pay its workers on time and falling behind on employee contributions to the provident fund, Unemployment Insurance Fund and medical aid since 2018. The party has blamed funding laws for this.
Although the ANC has consistently called for the restrictions to be eased, Ramaphosa’s decision was based on a resolution adopted by the Portfolio Committee on Home Affairs and later passed by the National Assembly — a resolution that, according to MVC, fails to strike the necessary balance between transparency and operational flexibility.
“It fails to do so because the new limits are not based on empirical, context-specific evidence and research that took balancing factors into consideration. Rather, this is a politically expedient power grab that diminishes our ability to exercise constitutional rights, namely, our political rights (section 19) and our right of access to information (section 32),” said the organisation.
It argued that the immediate effect of the increased threshold and donation cap was a further erosion of transparency in political funding, which makes it easier for private interests to influence politics and for corruption to take root.
“The details of all donations under R200,000 will not be known to the public. This is an enormous sum for most South Africans, and donations of such amounts should be made public knowledge to facilitate scrutiny of parties’ relationships with donors and ensure that donors are not receiving anything in return.
Read more: My Vote Counts challenges Political Party Funding Act in call for greater transparency in donations
“Further, when a right is to be limited — in this case, the two rights mentioned above — there needs to be adequate justification for doing so. The state has never provided a legitimate reason why all donations should not be disclosed to the public,” said the organisation.
Financially stable
At a recent media briefing, ANC Secretary-General Fikile Mbalula declined to answer questions about the party’s outstanding debts. He said the ANC was not a wealthy organisation and relied heavily on donations, but insisted that it was now financially stable.
MVC contended that, four years after the Political Party Funding Act came into effect, and despite the disclosures published by the Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC), the law still fell short of its constitutional aims of transparency, openness, and accountability.
The organisation had asked the court to order that all private donations, regardless of the amount, be disclosed. It also sought to ensure that individuals and legal entities who make cumulative donations above the annual threshold are identified, and that the then R15-million annual donation cap be reduced.
Furthermore, MVC wanted donors to be subject to cumulative caps and disclosure rules, and for all parties and independents to report how private donations are spent.
“We also argued that the President’s power to make the final determination is also unconstitutional because it’s placing too much power in a conflicted individual, not because he’s Mr Ramaphosa, but because he’s the head of the executive and also the head of his political party,” said Bregman.
The court found that any exercise of this discretion would be subject to review if done improperly.
“The mere possibility that the exercise of a discretion may be exercised improperly or for improper reasons does not, per se, render it objectionable.”
Those opposing the application, which included the President, the IEC, and 15 political parties, argued that the Act was not unconstitutional and that MVC had failed to demonstrate that all funding information was required for the effective exercise of the right to vote.
The disclosure threshold, they argued, protected the rights of donors and political parties.
Bregman said they were prepared to escalate the matter through an appeal and possibly to the Constitutional Court.
“We will keep all our options open,” he said. DM