The 2005 floor crossing window period in South Africa was a period of 15 days, from 1 to 15 September 2005, in which members of the
National Assembly and the
provincial legislatures were able to
cross the floor from one political party to another without giving up their seats. The period was authorised by the
Tenth Amendment of the
Constitution of South Africa,[1] which scheduled regular window periods in the second and fourth September after each election. The
previous general election had been held on 14 April 2004.
In the National Assembly, the floor-crossing expanded the
African National Congress' (ANC) representation from 279 to 293 seats, giving it control of almost three-quarters of the 400-member house. Other existing parties mainly lost seats, with several entirely new parties being created; still-existing parties created in 2005 include the
National Democratic Convention
Seven of the nine provincial legislatures were also affected, with only the
Free State and
North West legislatures remaining unchanged. In both the
KwaZulu-Natal Provincial Legislature and the
Western Cape Provincial Parliament the ANC received enough members to move from a plurality to an absolute majority; in KwaZulu-Natal it gained two members to control 40 of the 80 seats, while in the Western Cape it gained five, to give it 24 of the 42 seats.
This window period also saw the final demise of the
New National Party, in which all its members crossed the floor, mostly to become ANC representatives.
The tables below show all the changes; in those provinces not listed there was no change in the provincial legislature.
The
National Council of Provinces was reconstituted as a result of the changes in the provincial legislatures. Its reconstituted makeup was as follows:[4]