South African Opposition Party Behaviour Under the National State of Disaster to Respond to the Covid-19 Pandemic

ABSTRACT

The President of the Republic of South Africa declared a national state of disaster, in terms of the Disaster Management Act 2002 (Act 57 of 2002) on the 16th of March 2020, which empowers the executive to coordinate disaster management mechanism that focuses on preventing and reducing the outbreak of Covid-19 virus. In other words, the legislative and executive functions of the state have effectively been lapsed into one. This case study examines the consequences of this type of emergency regime on the behaviour of parliamentary opposition parties. Parliaments initiate, prepare and pass legislation, as well as exercise oversight and hold government to account. I look at the number of amendments, oral and written questions for a limited period of six months from the announcement of the national state of disaster, and compare with the same period the previous years, 2018, 2019, 2020, to determine if the changing nature of executive-legislative constitutional balance has influenced the behaviour of opposition parties in their strategies relating to policy-making and scrutiny.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Just 0.25% of the votes, around 50,000 voters in the last election are required to win representation of at least one seat in the national legislature.

2 Virtual Programme Committee on 7 May 2020: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pReRGjOHo_8.

3 Virtual Programme Committee on 7 May 2020: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pReRGjOHo_8.