Johnathan Paoli
THE Congress of the People (COPE) has expressed its desire to amend the Constitution to allow citizens to vote directly for executive leadership positions such as presidents, premiers and mayors.
COPE held a media briefing on Tuesday at the provincial headquarters in Johannesburg to expand on their idea.
Party general secretary, Erick Mohlapamaswi, said they wanted to prevent the common situation where parties protected their leaders at the expense of the people.
“We feel because they have been accounting to their political parties, we need a leader who is accountable to South Africans as a whole. If he does something wrong, South Africans can hold them accountable,” Mohlapamaswi said.
Currently in relation to the country’s electoral law, votes are regulated by the concept of ‘proportional representation’, in which citizens vote for parties and the public representatives of those parties appoint the heads of administrations throughout the different government
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