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COPE

“Regime change?” – No it’s called democracy

Nov 3rd, 2010
by Pierre De Vos.
65 comments

It sounds like some members of the ANC might be panicking prematurely. For the first time since 1994 the ANC National Working Committee (NWC) has issued a statement that seems to hint that the ANC was not fully committed to democracy and that it may not relinquish power if it lost a free and fair election because it would view that as “regime change”. The panic is rather strange because the ANC received two-thirds of the votes during the last election.

But the stakes are high for the tenderpreneurial wing in the governing party. After all, if the ANC loses an election, its leaders will lose access to all those government cars and all the free stays at the Mount Nelson. They will not be able to go on the many government-sponsored overseas trips and their bodyguards and blue light convoys will be taken away from them. And for the increasing number of ANC cadres who believe ANC stands for “ANother Contract”, the thought of losing the ability to dish out tenders to friends, family and business partners, must really be troubling.

But still, the statement issued by the NWC in the wake of the Civil Society Conference, organised by Cosatu, is difficult to explain. Sure the ANC was not invited, but neither was any opposition party. And it is not as if Cosatu and civil society organisations had decided to form their own political party to challenge the ANC at the next election. Why then this rather over the top and and anti-democratic rant?

It suggests both a deep suspicion and a rather sad insecurity on the part of a some ANC leaders, who might have forgotten that the overwhelming majority of voters still put their trust in the ANC at the last general election. Who is in charge of the ANC, one might ask. This statement sounds more like it was drafted by Julius Malema and Simphiwe Nyanda than by Gwede Mantashe and Kgalema Motlanthe.

The assertion and suggestion made by Civil Society formations and some unions and unions leaders, can be clearly interpreted by any logical thinking person as an attempt on the side of the organizers to put a wedge between civil society formations, some Unions, the ANC and its Government.

We should all learn from history of what happened in some parts of the continent, when some labour leaders working together with civil society formations, came up with alternative political parties to unset the ruling parties and governments in those parts of the continent.

We believe the leadership of COSATU is fully aware of what we are talking about here, and we believe the majority of the COSATU leadership have no intention of implementing regime change in South Africa, but we non-the-less caution, that an action like the one of leading a charge for the formation and for the mobilisation of a mass civic movement outside of the Alliance partners and the ANC might indeed be interpreted as initial steps for regime change in South Africa. This is further reinforced by the attacks on all black political parties by the Secretary General of COSATU and the notable omission of the main opposition in such attacks.

An organized and mobilized civil society is good for democracy. Equally an organised and mobilised civil society that has positioned itself as an opposition to other forces of change is having the potential of derailing the revolution and the programme for change.

Regime change? What are these people smoking? We live in a democracy, not in a one party state. Anyone – including any labour movement and any civil society organisations – have the right to convene a summit without inviting the ANC. If this is bad alliance politics, then say so. But talking about regime change and suggesting that Zimbabwe is in the mess it is in because trade unions and civil society groups formed the MDC is rather scary. (A more alarmist interpretation of the NWC statement would be that it was a warning to Cosatu and civil society leaders to toe the line – or else. After all in Zimbabwe many MDC leaders were arrested, tortured and sometimes murdered by the Zanu-PF police thugs.)

In fact, in a democracy, trade unions and civil society groups have a right to form a political party and contest elections and if they won such an election this could not possibly be called “regime change” as “regime change” happens when the government of the day is overthrown illegally. The ANC statement suggests that in its world any organisation that wished to oust the ANC at the ballot box was acting illegally and unconstitutionally – a notion that is patently absurd. (This reminds me of the saying passed around amongst white progressives who refused to vote in whites only elections during apartheid: “If voting could change anything, it would have been illegal.”)

If Cosatu and civil society groups formed a political party and contested elections – something that they have made clear they are not planning to do – and if they win an election, that will not constitute regime change but a democratic change of the government. That is what democracy is all about – the voters get to decide who rule the country – so the ANC’s dark mutterings about regime change hints that it sees itself as having the right to rule regardless of what the voters say. Why then is the ANC NWC using such inflammatory phrases and why are some ANC leaders overreacting to the Cosatu summit?

I think there are at least two reasons for this.

First, as the ANC gets dragged down in a cesspit of corruption and nepotism, as some of its leaders pocket millions of Rand through shady deals and corrupt tenders, as they throw lavish parties and live a lifestyle so obscenely opulent that it could only – in the long run – breed resentment and distrust, the party is becoming more paranoid about the threats to its power.

Because it is slowly losing the moral high ground as the party becomes ever more closely associated with corruption and greed (something that is so predictable as it happens to governing parties in almost all one party dominant democracies), the party is terrified that it will suffer the same fate as Zanu-PF in Zimbabwe, who won landslide election victories until the referendum on a new Constitution came around. Then Zanu-PF shockingly lost the referendum after civil society mobilisation against the new draft Constitution. It has not won an election since and had to steal several elections since then to stay in power.

This means that if the same thing happened in South Africa the ANC’s electoral decline will not happen gradually but will come suddenly and brutally fast – as one day the long suffering electorate who has continued to give the ANC the benefit of the doubt wake up from their long daydream and turn their backs on the greedy kleptocrats and incompetents who have infiltrated the ANC.

Second, as it becomes more and more difficult for the ANC to present itself as the party of “revolutionary change” (given that it has been in power for 16 years and is becoming a party whose reasons for ruling has less to do with revolutionary change and more with access to power and the money that flows from power), the threat of losing the support of civil society and elites more generally becomes a more serious concern.

I suspect the ANC has been shocked by the recent successful mobilisation by civil society and Cosatu against the draconian Secrecy Bill. This initiative must have been a wake-up call to the ANC because civil society stood up as one to reject this draconian piece of legislation and easily won the political argument, convincing the majority of South Africans that the Bill will be used to hide corruption, not to protect state security. That is why the ANC has had to backtrack on the Bill. During the hearings of the ad hoc Committee of Parliament on the secrecy Bill, the ANC members were extraordinarily arrogant and vindictive and gave the impression that it would pass the BIll come hell or high-water. Since then the ANC has softened its stance and now claim it was never fully committed to the original version of the Bill.

Since 1994 civil society has – broadly speaking – been supportive of the ANC. Even the Treatment Action Campaign was careful to position itself not in opposition to the ANC, but merely in opposition to the health policies of one scarily paranoid President and his alcoholic Minister of Health. This has made it much easier for the ANC to run the country and to retain the legitimacy that it needs to govern and to win elections.

But since Jacob Zuma has been elected as leader of the ANC, and especially because of some really scary moves on the part of the ANC and the government it runs (the abolition of the Scorpions to protect corrupt party elites from prosecution, the Secrecy Bill, proposals for a Media Appeals Tribunal), civil society has become more disenchanted with the ANC. And civil society could become a vehicle to channel disenchantment with the ANC in government. As the official opposition lacks legitimacy amongst the majority of voters, such voters who demand change and demand better government might look towards civil society – instead of toward the increasing number of  inept and corrupt members of the ANC – to deliver such change.

The problem for the ANC is that its electoral dominance is based, in part, on its dominance of the political space. As long as there is a perception that the ANC is the only game in town, it will be easier for the ANC to remain politically dominant. But as soon as that perception is shattered (as happened in Zimbabwe with the constitutional referendum) all bets are off and voters may decide to desert the party in droves and vote for an alternative.

COPE did not make a big impact at the last election at least partly because voters still saw the ANC as the only relevant political party in South Africa; the only party who could possibly win an election; the only party who could deliver access to state resources and the patronage that goes with it (even if it could not deliver services). But if the ANC appears electorally vulnerable because it believes that if it stops being the dominant moral and political voice in our politics, this might open the floodgates and ordinary voters – especially in the metropolitan areas – who are disenchanted with the ANC because of a lack of service delivery (or just because the ANC had “affirmed” somebody else with a nepotistic government job and not themselves) might look elsewhere and might vote for a new party (like voters in Zimbabwe suddenly voted for the MDC in Zimbabwe).

No wonder the NWC got their nickers in such a knot about such a silly and inconsequential matter. But this hysterical statement won’t change anything. If the ANC wanted to regain the political initiative it should actually govern better and more honestly; it should really tackle corruption (instead of merely talking about how it wants to tackle corruption); and it should ditch the draconian proposals for the adoption of a Secrecy Bill and a Media Appeals Tribunal. But whether the people in charge of the ANC (whoever this might be) understands this or whether these people are too far gone on the path of paranoia and suspicion – well that only time will tell.

Wanted: a culture of accountable democracy

Nov 2nd, 2009
by Pierre De Vos.
46 comments

What do we mean exactly when we talk about our South African democracy? Some among us (as one of our former Presidents used to say) seem to believe that democracy is only about five-yearly elections in which the ANC gets a mandate from the people to govern the country in between elections as it sees fit. Others think  democracy is about allowing ANC members (regardless of who paid for their membership fees) to elect a new leadership and adopt policy positions at its five-early conference, coupled with oversight of the government by the elected ANC leaders at Luthuli House.

Others, yet again, believe (maybe because they will never win elections) that democracy is about “effective opposition” and about opposition parties shouting and screaming and moaning bitterly about the excesses of the governing party. The rich and powerful often seem to think democracy is all about making large donations to political parties or befriending politicians by lavishing them with shares, whiskey and cash in order to secure political influence and contracts or to “buy” the economic and political stability required to continue making obscene amounts of money for CEO’s and shareholders.

And, of course, in selfish South Africa, democracy for many means no more than always getting your own way and screaming blue murder and complaining about a scandalous infringement of your rights (maybe because of a conspiracy/racism/”reverse-racism”/arrogance/or abuse of power) when what you want is not handed to you forthwith.

In South Africa – so its seems to me – most of us are in favour of democracy (even if some are more grudging about the need for this than others), yet we do not share an understanding of what such a democracy should look like. Maybe it is time to start a discussion about the nature of the kind of democracy we would like to see flourishing on this southern tip of Africa.

As a constitutional scholar, my starting point is the Constitution, most notably section 1(d) which states that ours is a sovereign and democratic state based on “[u]niversal adult suffrage, a national common voters roll, regular elections and a multi-party system of democratic government, to ensure accountability, responsiveness and openness.

Accountability. Responsiveness. Openness.

Of course, our Constitution contains all the formal trappings of democracy, which the Constitutional Court has stated contains aspects of both direct democracy (regular elections) and participatory democracy (the right of citizens to take part in the decisions of the legislature and executive). However, in the absence of a culture of accountability, responsiveness and openness, these formal trappings of democracy cannot provide us with more than an impoverished form of democracy.

What is required, it seems to me, is for the political, community and business elites to embrace a culture of justification (as Prof Etienne Mureinik memorably called it) within the disciplining framework of the Constitution. Such a culture of justification must not be equated with a legalistic and formalistic justification of outrageous, immoral or incompetent acts as this merely allows the powerful to hide behind laws, processes and structures to avoid real accountability to those who really matter: the ordinary, long suffering citizens who rely on the state and private institutions to create the environment which would deliver “a better life for all”.

A culture of justification would require ministers to do more than to point to the Ministerial Handbook to justify the purchase of outrageously expensive cars and extended stays in the most expensive hotels. A real culture of justification would require a mayor to explain why her team had never realised that the budget for the Cape Town BRT system was wrongly calculated and would not allow her to justify this by blaming a low-level official for the balls-up.

It would require a Minister to explain to Joe Slovo residence why they are being forced to move to far off Delft when other land much closer to the city (but too close to land owned by powerful business interests) were available. A Public Protector would have to explain why he needed a R7 million golden handshake for merely doing his job and how such a handshake would improve the lives of ordinary South Africans. A mayor would have to go to Phiri and justify to residents why their community was singled out for the installation of pre-paid water meters while the rich white folks in Sandton would continue paying for water only at the end of the month.

A culture of justification seems to me the antithesis of a culture of contempt, which treats voters as gullible children to be bamboozled and blinded with empty promises and legalistic arguments devoid of any ethical substance.

If our society embraced a culture of accountability it would not mean that those in power would always have to follow the wishes or dictates of the community to the detriment of the country or of other communities. Sometimes people in power must make unpopular decisions for the greater good, but when that happens, such decisions must only be taken after the needs of the affected communities have been recognised and considered and after the relevant person or body has accounted to those affected.

In such a democracy, the government of the day will not act contemptuously towards those whom they are supposed to serve, but would respectfully take their individual needs into account. Instead of top down democracy, a bottom up democracy will emerge. Although the needs of the few will sometimes have to yield to the interest of society as a whole, it will not be left up to bureaucrats  and political and business elites to decide what is best for communities (but really, would usually mean what is best for them and their friends) and then to implement the policies without having to justify their decisions to those it might affect.

Implicit in a culture of justification is a recognition of the need for an ongoing democratic dialogue between the rulers and the ruled, an openness to change and an understanding that different communities might need different things at different times.

In a constitutional state this dialogue will not necessarily lead to a kind of oppressive communitarianism, because the Constitution – especially the Bill of Rights – places constraints on everyone to act within the pre-determined rules which protect the marginalised and the vulnerable from the tyranny of the majority.

Of course a culture of justification can only flourish where people respect one another, where they talk and listen to each other and where disagreements are not dealt with by issuing insults and death threats. Sadly, most South Africans (and to some extent the media) seem to have a vested interest in the shouting and screaming as it serves their immediate political, emotional and class interests. But maybe, just maybe (I know I am hopelessly romantic and naive here), starting a conversation about the kind of democracy we want and deserve can begin to change all this.

Opposition parties shoot themselves in the foot

Aug 24th, 2009
by Pierre De Vos.
58 comments

It is clear that President Jacob Zuma made a mistake when he announced his “nomination” of Justice Sandile Ngcobo as new Chief Justice before asking opposition parties for their opinion on the matter. He made things worse during the news conference following the announcement when he said – in response to a question – that he had “appointed” Ngcobo.

Section 174(3) clearly states that:

The President as head of the national executive, after consulting the Judicial Service Commission and the leader of parties represented in the National Assembly, appoints the Chief Justice and the Deputy Chief Justice and, after consulting the Judicial Service Commission, appoints the President and Deputy President of the Supreme Court of Appeal.

If this had happened when that other guy (what is his name again?) had still been President, the mistake would probably have been denied and a vigorous ad hominem attack would have been launched (either personally in his weekly internet letter or through henchmen like Essop’s Fables) against the opposition for complaining about the matter.

President Zuma did the right thing, admitting that he had made a mistake and writing a letter to the leaders of opposition parties and explaining that he used the word “appoint” in response to a question from the media. This, he wrote:

was inadvertent and does not change the fact that I had decided merely to nominate Justice Ngcobo to this position. It is common cause that you first nominate, and then open the consultative process. Our reading of the Constitutional provisions regarding the appointment process does not preclude the President from proposing a name. In fact, the practice as followed in the past has generally been for the President to ask the parties to state their views on a particular name.

Please rest assured that I have not appointed a new Chief Justice, nor have I taken a final decision on whom to appoint as the new Chief Justice, but reiterate my confidence in Justice Ngcobo as my preferred candidate. In making my final decision, I will of course take into account any views the leaders of political parties may express about him.

The President does not have to follow the advice of the opposition parties after consulting them on the Chief Justice, but he must (as his letter makes clear) keep an open mind and listen to the opposition parties before going right ahead and appointing anyone he pleases. The provision that he must appoint a Chief Justice “after consultation with” opposition parties is thus a fomalistic one and it would be surprising indeed if any president (from whatever party) ever changed his or her mind after consulting the opposition about such an appointment.

I am therefore surprised that the opposition parties have refused to accept President Zuma’s apology and admission that he made a mistake. It is not as if it will change the outcome of the process, and by harping on about this even after an apology and admission that a mistake was made, seem churlish and petty in the extreme.

There are far more important constitutional issues they should be concerned about and which they could rightly complain about: the probable unlawful dropping of charges against Zuma, the probable unlawful release of Schabir Shaik and the Constitutional 17th and 18th Amendment Bills which will erode the testing right of the courts are all important constitutional issues opposition parties could rightly get upset about.

Now they natter on like little children who received a slightly smaller piece of the birthday cake. They run the risk of being perceived as the boy who cried wolf once too often so that when they complain about something really important people will just say: well, there they go again complaining about everything.

They claim Zuma’s apology and admission is just an artificial move with no substance and that he should withdraw Ngcobo’s nomination. But style and substance often overlap and I, for one, would like to applaud our President for facing up to his mistake and taking steps to rectify it. The fact that opposition parties seem to find it impossible to display the same kind of magnanimity and humility as the President, says much about what is wrong with opposition politics in our country.

If one cannot distinguish between the important issues worth fighting about and the trivialities, one loses one’s credibility. This has clearly happened in this case and in the end Zuma, despite the mistake, emerges as the winner of this spat.

Reasons not to charge Zuma unpacked

Mar 19th, 2009
by Pierre De Vos.
32 comments

If the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) decides not to charge Mr Jacob Zuma, they will obviously have a lot of explaining to do. But what plausible reasons could the NPA possibly provide to justify such a decision? There seems to be at least three possible ways for the NPA to justify its decision if it decides to go that rout.

First, the NPA can argue that after taking representations from Mr Zuma and his lawyers it has come to the conclusion that it does not have a winnable case against him. This will be a difficult case to make. The State’s own sworn statements to the Constitutional Court in the appeal against the Harms judgment seems to suggest that the case is indeed winnable. In an affidavit filed at the Constitutional Court, Scorpions investigator Johan du Plooy stated that:

The accumulation of all the new evidence obtained as a result of the 2005 searches (on Zuma and his lawyers’ and associates’ homes and offices) and the further investigation pursuant to the new documents and perspectives, together with the consequent re-analysis of the old documents and evidence, provides a firm basis for the institution of a prosecution.

If the NPA now changes its story it would mean either that it was lying to the Constitutional Court or that is lying now to the public. Moreover, the lawyers who investigated the matter initially recommended that Mr Zuma be prosecuted because there was a winnable case against him – only to be overruled by Bulelani Ngcuka. Subsequently two National Directors have also concluded that there was a winnable case.

The NPA will therefore have to show that Mr Zuma had provided them with new information that cast doubt on his intention to be corrupt. This is because the main legal issue in a Zuma prosecution will be whether he accepted all this money from Shaik and the arms company and then did favours for them with the intention to be corrupt. I am at a loss to come up with any information that would so dramatically change the legal assessment of so many lawyers over so many years as to warrant a decision that the case has become unwinnable because the state would not be able to prove Mr Zuma’s corrupt intention.

Second, the NPA can argue that it was not in the public interest to proceed with charges against Mr Zuma. The prosecuting policy states that once a prosecutor is satisfied that there is sufficient evidence to provide a reasonable
prospect of a conviction, a prosecution should normally follow, “unless public interest demands otherwise”.

By the way, the prosecuting policy does not mention the national interest in connection with non-apartheid era crimes, so the NPA would not be able to argue that it was not in the national interest to prosecute Mr Zuma because the economy would implode or because Mr Zuma’s supporters will make the country ungovernable. Besides, it would be untenable for an individual to escape prosecution because his supporters are threatening violence as this would completely undermine respect for the Rule of Law and would amount to blackmail of the criminal justice system.

(That is also why the firing of Vusi Pikoli on the basis that he disregarded national security issues and was thus no longer a fit and proper person, seems to me to be clearly illegal. The prosecution policy does not require the NDPP to consider national security or the national interest before proceeding with arrests and prosecution.)

The prosecution policy states that when deciding whether it is in the public interest to prosecute, the NPA should consider several factors. It will have to look at the nature and seriousness of the offense and its prevalence in society and should ask what impact this kind of offense has on society and the economy. As corruption is a cancer that is clearly gaining ground in South Africa, and as this was confirmed by several court judgments, this would strongly suggest that charges should be pursued vigorously.

The interest of the victims and the broader community should also be taken into account and the need for individual and general deterrence, and the necessity of maintaining public confidence in the criminal justice system must be considered. Once again, the problem of increased corruption in our society and the fact that the case has been politicised, seem to make it more rather than less desirable to prosecute a high profile and powerful person like Mr Zuma for corruption. Otherwise the suspicion will linger that charges were dropped because of political pressure and hence will signal that if one is powerful enough one is above the law. This will completely discredit the crimial justice system and will hence not be in the public interest.

The circumstances of the offender must also be taken into account to decide whether it was in the public interest to proceed with prosecution. In this regard one should ask whether the accused has admitted guilt, shown repentance, made restitution or expressed a willingness to co-operate with the authorities in the investigation or prosecution of others. When taking into account the circumstances of the offender, one must also ask whether there has been an unreasonably long delay between the date when the crime was committed, the date on which the prosecution was instituted and the trial date, taking into account the complexity of the offense and the role of the accused in the delay.

This might help the NPA to justify a withdrawal of charges – especially given the fact that the NDPP first decided not to prosecute Zuma and then changed his mind. But given Mr Zuma’s high profile, the fact that he insists on his innocence, and the imperatives of fighting corruption, I would imagine the public interest in proceeding with the case will outweigh the interests of the offender. Unless of course Mr Zuma has now indicated to the NPA that he was willing to assist it in pursuing far bigger cases of corruption in the arms deal. Then it would be game on!

A third possible reason would seem to provide the most promising avenue for the NPA to justify a decision not to proceed against Mr Zuma. This would be that Mr Zuma will not be able to receive a fair trial as guaranteed by section 35 of the Constitution due to the unreasonable delays in the case, and that his application for a permanent stay of prosecution would hence have a strong chance of success and therefore that it was not advisable to continue the case against Mr Zuma.

Once again, the decision of Bulelani Ngcuka not to charge Zuma while stating that he had a case to answer would be pivotal. But this argument would not be without its problems as it could be argued that the decision about charging Mr Zuma was only really taken after the Shaik conviction in 2005 and that given our less than fully functioning criminal justice system, four years could not be considered to be an unreasonable delay. Moreover, many of the delays can be attributed to the various applications brought by Mr Zuma to challenge the legality of search and seizure warrants and indeed the decision to charge him at all.

So in conclusion it seems to me there are only two credible ways out for the NPA. Either  it must proceed with charges against Mr Zuma or it must announce that it is dropping charges against Mr Zuma in return for his co-operation in order to catch the really big fish in the arms deal. The latter would of course constitute a political bombshell of the highest order and I am not sure if Mr Zuma will go down that rout as it might well backfire terribly against the ANC – unless of course all the people he plans to finger are now conveniently members of Cope.

HIV/AIDS, Cope, and democracy

Feb 25th, 2009
by Pierre De Vos.
76 comments

When Mahatma Ghandi visited the United Kingdom after the Second World War and was asked by a journalist what he thought about Western civilization he reportedly said: ¨Yes, its a good idea.¨ I feel the same way about Cope.

When the ANC took over the government after our democratic revolution, many of us felt that it was not such a bad thing that it had overwhelming support ¨among the masses of our people¨. After all, in the wake of the unjust and deeply unequal situation left by the apartheid system, we needed a strong government to ensure the speedy transformation of South Africa to a more just and equitable society and to ensure social stability – and the ANC looked like the only party ready and capable of governing South Africa and doing just this.

Now, fifteen years later, the arms deal scandal later, Zuma later, the firing of Vusi Pikoli later, HIV/AIDS denialism later and laughable blue light brigade escapades later, a strong ANC looks less and less like a good idea and more and more like a disaster for South Africa.

So when Mosiuoa Lekota took the plunge and formed Cope, it seemed like a good idea: finally a credible party to take on the increasingly arrongant, anti-poor, delusionally arrogant people in the ANC government who think its ok to elect a President who might very well be guilty of serious corruption and fraud. Even though I did not rate their chances of getting more than 10% of the vote, I was still rooting for Cope to shake up our politics. Goodness knows, we need it.

But sadly, Cope seems to be disintegrating before our eyes. Because the leaders could not decide who should be the face of the party for the election, they chose a political non-entity, Bishop Mvume Dandala, to front for the party while Lekota and Sam Shilowa fought it out behind the scenes.

And as Sipho Seepe points out in a thought-provoking column in today`s Business Day, Bishop Dandala seems to be a Thabo Mbeki lackey:

That Dandala would be Mbeki’s favourite priest is no accident. He was invited to officiate at his inauguration and rewarded with the now disgraced National Order of the Baobab. Dandala played his part in the struggle against apartheid. There was nothing to lose. The real test of courage is when we have something to lose. In my book, Dandala failed this test.

And then I read on news24 that Lekota refused to comment on whether HIV causes Aids. “Look I am not an expert on HIV and Aids and I don’t want to venture an opinion on whether it does or not,” he said.

Well, I am not a geographer but if someone asks me whether the earth is round I am going to say, yes of course. And I might not be a scientist but if someone asks me whether boiling water is hot or cold, I am going to say: well it is hot.

So, for Lekota not to want to contradict his ex-boss by confirming the bleeding obvious, namely that HIV causes Aids and that ARV`s can help to significantly prolongue the lives of poeple living with HIV is outragous and incomprehensible. Unless Lekota is still scared of angering his ex-boss who might still be pulling the strings of Cope behind the scenes.

I am only too thankful these guys won`t form the next government. Who needs a third term of Mbeki`s obfuscation and denialism?

Then rather give us Mr Zuma, who might still surprise us all. Who knows maybe when he gets elected President he will become a principled person who tells people what they need to know, not what he thinks they want to hear. Who knows, maybe he will stop doing a Carl Niehaus and will start living within his means. Who knows, he might even do a few good things for the poor and will stop going around like a buffoon in a banana republic with thick-necked body guards who make Os Durand look like a ballet dancer and who go around in 20 car cavalcades and push ordinary people off the roads.

Maybe he will be humble and act the part.

Meanwhile, we will remain an impoverished democracy without any real choices come election time. Because of the implosion of Cope, because of the DA´s disasterous ¨fight b(l)ack(s) campaign which have made them unpalatble to most decent people, and because many voters still vote just as much to affirm their identities than as a considered choice about what would make their lives better, the ANC will again romp home to victory.

When will this change? Well, if we become a real united nation (not a nation united under the ANC), with a shared sense of identity, then people will start voting issues more than identity. In Brazil, where I have spent the last week witnessing two million people dancing in the Streets to the Portuguese Samba music they all seem to share and love, one is struck again by how fractured South African society is. Although there are huge gaps between rich and poor, and white and black here, what I saw in the streets of Salvador gave me goosebumps exactly because I felt a sense of community that we as South Africans only glimpsed during the Rugby World Cup and African Cup of Nations chapoinship wins.

We are devided by race, class, language and ethnicity and this tends to make us huddle in our own little laagers. And political parties will continue to exploit that for as long as it will bring them short term gain. So, as we gear up for the election, be sure to watch out while the ANC relentlessly remind us of apartheid and the DA – more subtly – make some ¨Swart Gevaar¨noises.

I fear we will only become united when we have a new common enemy. And – like the poor Zimbabweans who voted Morgan Tsvangirai into office as their President at least twice now in opposition to Mugabe and his kleptocratic thugs – that common enemy might well emerge to be the governing party who will be elected with a handsome majority for a while yet – until all hell breaks loose and everyone wakes up as from a collective nightmare and we throw out the bums, blue lights and all.

Race, class and affirmative action

Feb 17th, 2009
by Pierre De Vos.
58 comments

I am in Salvador de Bahia in Brazil and the streets are teeming with people preparing for carnival. This city was the port through which slaves from Africa were imported into Brazil and today the population is still 80% black. But the weird thing is, when I got on the plane from Sao Paulo, there were only two black people on the flight.

Not so weird really, because in Brazil until very recently there was no public or private affirmative action programmes and the official discourse has been one of non-racialism – officially there is no race and no racims in Brazil.

But if one starts reading about Brazil one soon finds out that there is indeed such a thing as race – although the law has not discriminated oficially against black people for many years. Race is lived by people and race also, to some degree, determines their place and status in society. And because of the official ¨non-racilism¨ there has been no reconing with the slave past.

So although almost 50% of the people of Brazil are not white, the top echelons of the government, judiciary and other elite institutions are almost exclusively staffed by white people. No wonder there were hardly any black people on the flight to Salvador.

Which makes me wonder whether those in South Africa (some COPE members? DA types?) who argue that affirmative action should be dealt with in terms of class and not race are not very, very wrong. Could it be possible that because of the oficial colour blind stance of the government, racism and racial prejudice is socially perpetuated almost just as effectivcely as apartheid was perpetuated with the assistance of legislation?

I am still reading up on this phenomenon, but at this stage I would have had to be blind not to see how poverty in Brazil is racialised and I would have to be stupid not to ask why, despite the fact that there is no official apartheid and have not been for more than a hundred years, black people are still the one´s cleaning the streets and white people are the one mostly sitting around sipping beer.

At least in Salvador black people are the majority and it is far more mixed than in other parts of Brazil. This is not Cape Town. But I would recommend a trip to Brazil to Helen Zille and Mosieu Lekota who talk about an ¨opportunity society¨¨ but do not seem too keen on oficially sanctioned, race based, affirmative action. Without it, I wonder, will there ever really be equal oportunities for all in South Africa?

Me thinks not.

Maybe politicians must at least pretend to make sense

Jan 20th, 2009
by Pierre De Vos.
50 comments

So far I have not been particularly impressed by the performance of the Cope leadership. I am happy Cope broke away and might ensure that the ANC does not get a two-thirds majority as this will ensure that the ANC won’t be able to tinker with our Constitution. And a bit of competition will do those arrogant fat cats of the ANC the world of good in the next few years. (There is nothing like another group of potential fat cats breathing down your neck to make one remember to do something nice for the masses of our people once in a while.)

But let’s face it, Cope got themselves into a terrible mess with their strange attitude towards affirmative action, for example, by seeming to oppose affirmative action on the basis of race despite the fact that it might well be mandated by the Constitution. Like the ANC they also do not seem to have a constitutional lawyer to advise them on the very basics of our Constitution according to which our country must be governed. Ag hemel tog, red nou ‘n volk.

In Minister of Finance v Van Heerden, decided in 2004 by the Constitutional Court, that arch counter-revolutionary Deputy Chief Justice, Dikgang Moseneke, (Gwede, are you paying attention to see what this counter-revolutionary has been up to?) made it clear that section 9 of the Constitution does not only allow for corrective measures on the basis of race, but sometimes requires it. This is because positive action on the part of the state is mandated by section 9 to break the patterns of disadvantage and harm created by past unfair discrimination. 

And given the fact that people have been discriminated against on the basis (inter alia) of race and that racism is still rife in our society, some forms of race-based corrective measures might well be constitutionally required. It is not for Cope to just stop this because it decided its leaders have been sufficiently “affirmed”.

(Moseneke quite correctly, I think, said he preferred the Afrikaans term “regstellende aksie” to the unhelpful American term affirmative action. This is because such measures are required to address past injustice and not only to “affirm” some people or to make them feel good about themselves. This is about justice - something the Constitution speaks about quite a lot.)  

It does not help that people like Mbhazima Shilowa and his wife have become extremely rich at least partly because of race-based corrective measures. When Cope then talks about the end of raced-based affirmative action, it seems to say: It was good for us to get on the gravy train through affirmative action but now that we are rich it must stop!

This attitude can, to be kind, sound like rank hypocrisy. What about the poor, black, uneducated rural people of South Africa who did not have any ANC connections and did not know Brett Kebble and are still struggling – often in the face of deeply entrenched racism?  Are they to be thrown at the wolves?

In any case, having said that, I was rather amused at the blistering attack launched against Cope by the Afrikaans poet and Treasurer General of the ANC, Matthews Phosa. According to Business Day:

In notes prepared for his speech to the manifesto rally in Katlehong, Phosa said that COPE was nothing but the Democratic Alliance in disguise and that voters would be able to recognise that COPE statements were character assassination masked as matters of principle.

Phosa said COPE’s policies that had been put on the table in no way differed from the policies of the ANC, leaving one “with no other conclusion than to say that COPE is a house of people who are bitter about their democratic exclusion from the ANC”.

“If you leave a party because members think you have not provided leadership and then say the party you have left (the ANC) does not believe in democracy, you are distorting the truth in the worst possible way. The simple truth is that this new party has not offered anything by way of policy or proposals regarding the strengthening of democracy whatsoever.”

Can this possibly have been reported correctly? Can any politician be so stupid as to contradict himself insuch a blindingly obvious way? So, Cope is the DA in disguise, yet its policies are exactly the same as the policies of the ANC. This means Phosa has just admitted the ANC and the DA have the same policies! Either that, or he is saying policies do not matter: either you criticise us and then you are like the DA or you are one of us and then policies do not matter.

So why is the ANC always attacking the DA? If the DA policies are just like that of Cope and the ANC, then they are attacking their own policies – unless they do not believe a word they are saying when they attack the DA and are merely cross because the DA people have the temerity to criticise the ANC? It does not make sense. It reeks of opportunism. So it is just plain stupid to make such a statement.

Either that or the ANC is admitting that it, too, is a racist institution with racist policies out to perpetuate the interest of the white middle class! Come to think of it, ANC economic policy over the past ten years has really benefited the white middle class more than any other group in our society, so maybe Phosa does have a point.

Wonder what the SACP and Cosatu might say about this insight? Why are they still memebers of this racist, bourgeois, organisation called the ANC then? Just because the ANC gets the most votes? And where does comrade Umshini wam stand on all of this? Surely Phosa just “misspoke”? (Just like Hillary Clinton “misspoke” when she claimed to have landed in Bosnia under sniper fire when, in fact, she was greeted with flowers by little children.)

Some days a politician says such a breathtakingly stupid thing that one can only laugh. Today is such a day. Mr Phosa, maybe you should write some more Afrikaans poetry and should leave the politics to Julius Malema. Even he, surely, would not have made such a bizarre statement.

Democracy comes to Merafong

Jan 6th, 2009
by Pierre De Vos.
44 comments

In a sure sign that the era of Thabo Mbeki style high handed government  might be on the wane, Provincial and Local Government Minister Sicelo Shiceka said yesterday that the government would initiate legislation to give effect to the will of the majority of the communities affected by boundary disputes,

About, bloody, high time, I would say. According to Business Day Shiceka said:

“Intensive executive action will be needed to smooth the transfer to Gauteng.” Shiceka said he intended to fast-track a process of consultation in the Moutse and surrounding areas and the work began last month .

“Government officials will engage with structures and stakeholders in the community. Thereafter, I and other senior officials will meet with representatives of community stakeholders and structures.

“The goal of these engagements will be to examine how best to accommodate the views of the majority of the affected communities.”

This is wonderful news. The way in which the cross-border municipality issue was handled by the Mbeki government was scandalous, to say the least. The expressed wishes of the people were ignored and they were merely told that they had to shut up – despite having been faithful supporters of the ANC in previous elections.

But suddenly everything has changed and now the will of the majority of these residents will prevail. What on earth could have changed?

First, there is a new Minister and a new President who seem less assured of their own all-encompassing wisdom to do what is right for the people – even when the people disagree with them. In the Mbeki years it was the President and his cabinet who told people what they wanted and needed and the people who had to follow. If the ungrateful sods dared to disagree with the wisdom of the Dear Annointed One, they were called names. Suddenly this kind of arrogance and disregard for the wishes of the people have been replaced with a far more inclusive and humble approach to governance.

Haleluja, is all I can say.

But there is of course a second rather important reason for this sudden change of heart and that reason is called COPE. Suddenly the votes of all these communities who are dissatisfied with the high-handed actions of an uncaring and arrogant government, are votes to be competed over.

Never mind that some of the COPE leaders actually pushed through these absurd and heartless changes. Come the next election COPE might have champoined the plight of these communities and might have gained a hundred or two hundred thousand extra votes.

This is why I think the formation of COPE might turn out to be a good thing for our democracy – even though I am rather sceptical about some of the leaders in charge of the new party.

Competition in politics is a good thing, but so far there has been very little real competition in our politics because of the disasterous way in which Tony Leon positioned the Democratic Alliance as a “fight b(l)ack(s)” party. Who on earth among the affected communities with more than two brain cells would have voted for the official opposition when that opposition was so clearly not going to act in the best interest of the poor and the marginalised?

And the ANC knew this all too well and thus often acted in a way that showed a callous disregard for the interest of those very same poor and marginalised voters.

But suddenly with the new kids on the block, there is a real danger that the ANC would actually lose votes if it acts in a stupid, arrogant and insensitive manner towards whole communities. And suddenly we hear these wonderful noises coming from ANC government Ministers. Some Ministers now even seem to care about the poor and one or two Ministers who were too busy becoming tired and emotional, stealing other people’s watches, or getting liver transplants have suddenly been fired or moved sideways.

For that reason alone I hope COPE does fairly well at the polls (my tentative prediction is that the party could get between 6-9% of the vote) even though the new party is filled with many of the same arrogant and insensitive people who often acted in such a callous way during the Mbeki years.

Democracy will be the winner and with it the poor and marginalised South Africans who cannot privatise services and actually rely on the state to deliver. Viva democracy!