To get ahead in the civil service, to win government tenders, to be appointed as a school principle or police chief, one had to be seen to be a supporter of the PRI. And because of the overwhelming electoral support enjoyed by the PRI it was easy for it to discredit and even de-legitimise opposition parties. Only the PRI spoke for the masses of the people and only the PRI could be trusted to govern the country and to bring revolutionary development and change to the people (along with enormous prosperity and wealth for PRI leaders and those who knew them). 

And because of its dominance and its control of much of the media, it managed to win elections despite increasing allegations of corruption and nepotism levelled against it. There just was no one else to vote for and no one to trust. But this could never last: In the end Mexicans began to  distrust everyone – including the leaders of the PRI. While  some still believed that it would be in their interest to continue voting for the PRI and returned the PRI to power after every election, many people did not vote at all.

Thus the support of the PRI slowly began to recede in the late 1980s, but especially since the 1990s with the emergence of new forms of technology like cell phones and the Internet, with the growth of a more confident and informed middle class who eventually voted into office a former Coca Cola Executive as President. (That is like South Africa voting into office a former CEO of Anglo-American or the Rembrandt Group.) In 1989, the first non-PRI governor of a state was elected (at Baja California). It was in 1997, that PRI lost its absolute majority at the Congress of the Union, and in 2000 the first non-PRI president was elected since 1929.

Mexico shed its one party dominant character and today politics are robust and open. Although Mexico has many problems – drug lords seem to be able to terrorise citizens in many part of the country and effectively control the government in some parts – it did not go through the kind of violent convulsion we have seen in the last three weeks in Tunisia and now in Egypt. This is because Tunisia and Egypt have been authoritarian police states propped up by the USA government, who has poured more than $1.5 billion in military aid into Egypt each year since Egypt signed a peace deal with Israel.

Egypt holds regular elections but it would be a stretch to call it a democracy as there are severe restrictions on freedom of speech, the government has ruled under emergency powers for more than 30 years and there are severe restrictions on political organisation and mobilisation. Egypt is therefore more like Zimbabwe than South Africa. It is ruled nominally by the National Democratic Party (NDP), but this party is little more than an extension of the will of the President.

Watching the NDP headquarters in Cairo go up in flames on Al Jazeera on Friday night, my first thought was whether, thirty years from now, we will be watching Al Jazeera and seeing Luthuli House go up in flames during a revolt by unemployed and relatively educated youth which would shake the hold of the ANC government on the country to the core.

No political party can govern for ever. Even a liberation movement like the ANC will someday stop governing South Africa. This will probably happen either because the ANC was successful enough to create a big enough middle class whose interests does not coincide with the traditional working class constituency of the ANC and the one or the other class would desert the party (as happened in Mexico), or it would happen because the ANC would have lost all credibility and legitimacy because of increasing repression, linked to enormous corruption and nepotism and rising unemployment.

In the first instance the change might well come peacefully. The last ANC leader in power will lose an election and will retire peacefully (maybe opening an institute focusing on democracy building or anti-corruption efforts). This is what happens in a relatively free and open society: at some point the political party in power loses support and another party with different ideas win the election. Once that happens, South Africa would have become what political scientists call a mature democracy.

But if the ANC becomes more repressive - if it passes the draconian Protection of Information Bill, then a Bill creating a politician appointed Media Appeals Tribunal, then start taking measures further to limit political freedom and the ability of both parliamentary opposition groups and social movements to organise and to present a vehicle for those disaffected with its increasing corrupt and autocratic style, if it amends the Constitution and packs the courts with unprincipled lackeys – the last ANC leader in power might well have to seek political asylum in Zimbabwe or perhaps in the USA if he or she wants to escape the wrath of the people.

If the SABC becomes an ever more vocal mouthpiece spouting ANC propaganda, if we also start saying as they do in Egypt, that one cannot believe any rumour until it has been officially denied on state TV, if media laws restrict or completely repress the free media and monitor the Internet and anyone critical of the regime is fearful of talking on his or her phone because that phone will most certainly be tapped by the intelligence services, then a peaceful change becomes ever less likely. It is then that we will see the burning of Luthuli House and the storming of the SABC’s Auckland Park offices, when hundreds of thousands of people will march through the streets of Johannesburg and Cape Town and the army will scramble to see if any of their tanks are actually working so that they could be ordered into the streets to try and quell the demonstrations.

This is the lesson I take from what is happening in North Africa: in the end in the modern world with Internet and sattelite TV and mobile phones and rising levels of education amongst the population, political opression and control of the media can never ensure that a political party remains in power for ever. All it would do is heighten the chances of a violent uprising that will destroy the incumbent political party who tried to stay in power by repression. As Parliament deals with the Protection of Information Bill which – in its present form – would allow more than 1000 organs of state, including Zoos, universities, and Arts councils,  to classify documents deemed a threat to state security – I hope that they remember that often a restriction on information in the long term is more dangerous for those in power than openness and transparency could ever be.

In retrospect, comrade Nzimande was perhaps slightly over-exuberant when he made these comments. It is easy to understand why he might have felt that the print media was a threat to “democracy” (if not democracy) and to “socialism” (if not socialism). It was, after all, the liberal print media who first reported that comrade Nzimande had stayed at the Mount Nelson Hotel at taxpayers expense for more than two weeks at a cost of more than R40 000. This same, untransformed, liberal print media also first reported that comrade Nzimande had acquired two rather un-revolutionary Ministerial cars which cost us tax payers more than R2 million. Still, in retrospect the statement made by comrade Nzimande might be considered to have been slightly over the top.

If one assumes that honest and fair reporting and the free flow of information is the friend of socialism and democracy (which one imagines is a sentiment that would be endorsed by comrade Nzimande) and if one asumes that dishonest, twisted and unfair reporting is the enemy of socialism and democracy (as comrade Nzimande surely does), then one would have to concede that the print media might not be the biggest enemy of socialism and democracy in South Africa.

It turns out that comrade Nzimande should rather have turned his guns on the SABC.

After all, the vast majority of South Africans get their news from SABC television and radio stations – not from the rather struggling print media who caters to bourgeois, liberal elites who live in metropolitan areas. And this week we were reminded again of what a cesspit of dishonesty, lies and manipulation of news the SABC has become. As comrade Nzimande will surely concede, the SABC – captured by a faction within the ANC  – probably poses a far greater threat to our democracy (and presumably to socialism) than the print media ever did or will.

In a remarkable judgment in Freedom of Expression Institute v Chair, Complaints and Compliance Committee and Others the South Gauteng High Court reminded us just how utterly discredited and dishonest the SABC news reporting became under the direction of that staunch Thabo Mbeki apologist, Dr Snuki Zikalala, who also moonlighted as the SABC’s Director of News when he was not acting as an informal spin-doctor for Mbeki. If this was not reported in a court judgment one might easily have thought that it was all made up.

As the judgment points out, Dr Zikalala (PhD Bulgaria) had been accused in papers before the Complaints and Compliance Committee (CCC) of Icasa and then before the High Court of “crass manipulation of the SABC’s news and current affairs” during his tenure as its Director of News. Yet he never responded to these allegations when they were first made to the CCC and it was left up to a person in the legal department of the SABC to make statements based on “double hearsay” to deny these serious allegations of dishonesty and dereliction of duty by Zikalala. As the court remarked:

His failure to respond to the accusations against him, could only mean that he did not deny them or that the SABC and its lawyers had concluded that his denials would not withstand cross-examination. Either way, the only reasonable inference is that Dr Zikalala could not honestly deny the accusations against him.

Similarly the then SABC Board had been accused “of serious dereliction of its duties”. Its failure to explain itself gave rise to the same inference. It either did not deny the accusations against it or its lawyers had concluded that its denials would not withstand cross-examination. The only reasonable inference that could be drawn from this, said the Court, was again that the SABC’s Board could not honestly deny the accusations against it.

And what were these allegations which the High Court accepted as true? Well there were a number of incidents in which the SABC’s News Management and Dr Zikalala in particular, manipulated its news and current affairs, where they dishonestly tried to cover up this manipulation when it was publicly revealed and where the SABC’s Board subsequently failed to take any action when the manipulation and dishonest cover-up was exposed by its own Commission of Enquiry.

The Court takes up a few of these cases. One such case is that of poor Mandla Zembe who was almost fired for doing his job. I quote:

Mr Mandla Zembe was a young and highly talented SABC reporter who covered an ANC rally at a stadium in KwaMashu on the outskirts of Durban on 16 June 2005.’ Drama was expected because it was two days after President Mbeki had dismissed Deputy President Zuma from his cabinet. The Kwazulu-Natal Premier Mr S’bu Ndebele addressed the rally but was booed and pelted with plastic bottles and other objects. He found it hard to complete his speech. At the end he had to be escorted from the podium by his bodyguards who held a metal table over him to protect him against the missiles pelted at him. Mr Zembe filed stories on this incident throughout the day. Just after the 6 p.m. news bulletin, Dr Zikalala called Ms [Pippa] Green and instructed her to institute disciplinary proceedings against Mr Zembe the following day. When she asked why, he replied that he was in the TV “visuals room” and there was no evidence that the Premier had been booed or pelted. Ms Green called Mr Zembe to check the story and he confirmed that it was accurate.

Only a few seconds of the mayhem was shown on the 7 p.m. English television news bulletin. The Premier arrived at the SABC and demanded to be given airtime to deny that he had been pelted. He was allowed to do so on a current affairs show and was again given “considerable airtime” on the 10 p.m. television news bulletin despite the fact that his denials were manifestly false. When Mr Zembe returned to his newsroom, he found the Premier’s armed bodyguards walking around the newsroom in intimidating fashion. Ms Green says that this incident violated the SABC’s Editorial Code in that its reporter Mr Zembe “was intimidated not only by the Premier’s bodyguards but by the MD of news himself who threatened him with a disciplinary hearing for reporting the truth.” The substantial airtime given to the Premier “also served to distort the truth of what happened”. In my view this uncontroverted evidence establishes that Dr Zikalala also interfered with the news coverage of this incident.

Then there was the banning of several analysts and pundits who, SABC journalists were told, could not be used by the SABC. When the Sowetan broke this story and it became a big scandal the SABC, under the direction of Dr Zikalala, did what it knew best how to do: it lied. Once again the judge takes up the story. Faced with these rather embarrassing allegations, the SABC issued a statement which said:

“The SABC would like to state that the News Division has not imposed any blanket bans on the use of individual commentators by our current affairs programmes as reported by the Sowetan today.”

Mr Perlman says that this statement was “blatantly false and a deliberate attempt to mislead the South African public on an issue of critical importance”. That was indeed so. Dr Zikalala had by then blacklisted many individual commentators including Ms Elinor Sisulu, Mr Moeletsi Mbeki, Mr Trevor Ncube, Archbishop Pius Ncube, Ms Paula Slier, Ms Karima Brown and Mr Aubrey Matshiqi.

“After a number of problems experienced with experts and analysts, and some public feedback received by the SABC, a proposal was taken at a News Management meeting to devise policy guidelines on the use of commentators. These problems did not relate to commentators’ views on the succession debate or any specific topic or person, but to occasions where it was clear that commentators were sometimes ill-informed, providing viewers and listeners with analyses based on facts that were either incorrect or out of date”. (Emphasis added)

These statements were also false. It was not true that there was no more than a “proposal’. Dr Zikalala had already blacklisted many people for which he had advanced diverse excuses. The only thing these blacklisted individuals had in common was that they were all perceived to be less than friendly to the governing party under the leadership of President Mbeki.

“A discussion document was drafted by News Management, which would assist in establishing what kind of analysts was appropriate, in terms of expertise and experience to comment on a relevant topic to be discussed on a current affairs programme.” (Emphasis added)

This statement was also false in two respects. It was firstly not true that the issue had not proceeded beyond a mere “discussion document”. Dr Zikalala had already blacklisted a number of people. It was secondly not true that there was a discussion document at all. Mr Perlman says that he had never seen such a document and neither had his producers Mr Lang and Ms Dlamini. He points to further evidence which makes it clear that the statement that there was a discussion document was devoid of any truth. Mr Perlman categorically stated that two senior managers in the News Department, Mr Lang and Ms Dlamini, “openly said they had not seen them (discussion documents) either.” It is significant that the SABC has made no attempt to produce such a document in these proceedings.

Of course, Dr Zikalala has been fired and a new Director of News has (again, rather controversially – don’t these people learn!) been appointed who seem to represent another faction within the ANC. The SABC Board has since then also been changed but we all know that it is not the most well-functioning corporate entity in South Africa. Despite these changes, I am not sure that many reasonable people find the SABC news credible or the management fair, honest and impartial. It might well be that the whole atmosphere at the SABC has improved since the bad old days of Snuki Zikalala, but it would take a lot to restore the credibility of the SABC after this fiasco. (One is not even talking about many other SABC fiasco’s including the non-broadcast of a Bafana Bafana game due to sheer incompetence.)

Reading this judgment, one gets the impression that the problems at the SABC are deeply entrenched and that in order to fix it one would have  to change the entire culture within the organisation. This culture, which eschews fair and honest reporting and fair and honest dealings with the world and revels in intrigue, serving political factions and general politicisation of every aspect of the Broadcaster, has poisoned the SABC.

What those who are now considering appointments to the SABC Board should keep in mind is that political circumstances change. While a certain faction might be in the ascendancy in the ANC today, this might change tomorrow. When one makes Board appointments purely on the basis of political loyalty, one creates potential problems for the future. Better to have an SABC Board that is progressive but not in the pockets of one political clique or the other. One never knows when the shoe is on the other foot and then one does not want a Snuki Zikalala like character at the SABC who might lie and cheat in order to discredit those factions to whom he does not belong (but to whom one might well belong oneself).

Maybe comrade Nzimande could say a few words on this matter in the coming days to warn his comrades against the selection of SABC Board members who might serve a small clique inside the ANC (the tenderpreneurs, the Heynas, the Youth League, Cosatu?) who happens to be in power or in the ascendancy. While doing so, comrade Nzimande might then also reflect on his previous statement that the print media posed the biggest threat to our democracy in South Africa. He might ponder the fact that no-one in the print media has yet been exposed as the most disgustingly dishonest and double dealing crook in the same manner in which some SABC bosses have been in this judgment and he may then ask whether the print media is really as bad as he had argued.

Hendrickse was the leader of the Labour Party who was the majority party in the “House of Representatives”, the so called “coloured” House in the laughable tri-cameral Parliament, and as a gimmick PW Botha had included Hendrickse in his cabinet to try and show that his “reforms” were not cosmetic.

But after Hendrickse went for the swim, PW Botha (not a man with an even temper) lost his cool. He was even more incensed when he watched the eight’o clock news that evening (in those days the SABC’s main news bulletin was at eight in the evenings) and saw that Hendrickse had resigned. In fact, Botha claimed that he had fired Hendrickse before he could resign.

Botha then phoned Koedoe Eksteen and ordered that Botha’s letter in which he fired Hendrickse be read out no less than three times during the half hour news programme. Poor Freek Robinson, who was reading the news that night, was then told to do as Botha had ordered. Robinson first refused but he was told it was a management decision and he then proceeded to read that letter three times.

Six months later Robinson was “moved” to London, something many SABC watchers at the time interpreted as punishment for his initial reluctance to follow the orders of the President. Botha claimed at the time that he had not ordered the letter to be read but merely requested that it be read — three times, of course!

Now we live in a constitutional democracy and the SABC is supposed to be a public broadcaster that serves the entire community — not only the governing party. Although the SABC is more of a state than a public broadcaster and has a pro-ANC slant, as far as we know the blatant interference in the editorial content of news programmes are a thing of the past. Whether the head of the SABC Board or the Chief Executive Officer still receive phone calls from politicians to instruct them what to air and what to censor is unclear, but if it still happens, the new guys clearly are not nearly as brazen as PW Botha who ensured that the SABC was nothing else but a plain propaganda arm of the National Party.

Compared to the SABC in those years, the broadcaster is now a paragon of objective and responsible journalism.

But what about our print media? Do journalists and editors at our newspapers also get angry phone calls from politicians and if they do, is this appropriate?  I have been reliably told by one political journalist that he used to be woken up at the crack of dawn by angry phone calls from a certain opposition politician who angrily denounced his reporting and demanded some form of correction — until the journalist complained to other members of the party about her actions and pointed out that this kind of intimidation was unacceptable.

Would it be acceptable if the President or some other important ANC leader phoned up the editor of the Sunday Times to complain about a news report, to issue threats or to demand retractions or a change in the tenor of the reporting of the newspaper? If so, when? If not, what other course of action is available to political parties if they are aggrieved with the reporting of a newspaper? And what about phone calls to the owners of the Sunday Times?

Would it make a difference if the politician was from an opposition party and not the governing party?

Maybe because I lived through the Koedoe Eksteen era and because I have always been a passionate supporter of freedom of expression, I lean towards the view that it is not appropriate for political leaders to phone up editors or journalist to complain about the tenor of that newspaper’s reporting as this can very easily be seen as an attempt to intimidate the free press.

Politicians can, of course, ask for a right to reply in the opinion pages of the newspaper or they can write a letter to the newspaper putting across their view. And if they feel that the newspaper has breached the Press Code they can lodge a complaint with the press ombudsman. If a mistake was made (as was the case in the story published in the Sunday Times about the alleged sale of the ocean next to the Waterfront) the editor will surely publish a correction.

But facts are slippery things and need to be interpreted. Usually the way independent journalist interpret the facts differ from the way politicians interpret those same facts. Usually reasonable people (of which some may even be politicians) could disagree about the interpretation of the facts and then there should be no room for a politician to try and change the newspaper’s interpretation merely because the story is unflattering to the politician or the party he or she belongs to.

But maybe I am being unrealistic? Maybe newspaper editors field calls from angry politicians each day and what is required is for the editors to have a strong backbone and to resist any attempts at intimidation by politicians (and to protect their journalists from this kind of intimidation, of course).

If I were a politician I am sure I would often have disagreed with the way the newspapers reported on matters affecting myself or the political party I belonged to. But I suspect I would have tried a different approach than the one set out above by cultivating journalists and trying to charm them. Often the difference between obtaining an “A” or a “D” on the Mail & Guardian’s cabinet report card hinges on whether the cabinet Minister is a media savvy person who tries to charm and impress journalists or whether the Minister acts as if journalists are his or her enemies that have to be fought tooth and nail.

Let’s face it, even today, after so many years some of us shake our heads and remember that PW Botha was a reactionary bigot and an unconscionable bully, while Pik Botha – who served in the same cabinet for many years – is rather more fondly remembered (or at least not remembered as a monster).

It would be interesting to hear what readers of this Blog think about these questions.

The Sun remained a supporter of the Labour Party in election after election but switched sides before the general election earlier this year. Labour, of course, lost this election to a coalition of the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats. (The fact that Sky News was obviously rooting for the Conservatives might also have helped a bit.)

Clearly the African National Congress (ANC) does not share Tony Blair’s Machiavellian view of how to influence the media. In recent days several ANC leaders and spokespeople have revived the idea of a Media Appeals Tribunal. It is unclear what this Tribunal would do or to what extent it would impose the ideological world view of the ANC on the media.

For Gwede Mantashe, it seems, a Media Appeals Tribunal will help to “correct” the anti-ANC bias in the media. He argues  that the media is driven by a dark conspiracy to discredit the National Democratic Revolution (conveniently forgetting that the vast majority of South Africans receive their news from the SABC, a state broadcaster masquerading as a public broadcaster).

Blade Nzimande would like to see the Tribunal used to stop the alleged corruption in the media. He points out, correctly, that the Ashley Smith affair asks some serious questions not only about the integrity of Ebrahim Rasool, but also of Smith and other members of the media and calls for a re-evaluation of the role the media plays in South Africa. 

(Is it not ironic that a cabinet Minister has taken the allegations made by former Cape Argus reporter Ashley Smith at face value and has used it to argue for the institution of a Media Appeals Tribunal, while the President has appointed the very person who has allegedly bribed Smith as our ambassador to Washington? Will Nzimande demand that the appointment be rescinded or will he show himself to be a rank hypocrite?)

ANC spokesperson, Jackson Mthembu, so it seems, want to use the Media Appeals Tribunal to censor the media and to stop them publishing things that might be upsetting or distasteful. Lambasting the Mail & Guardian for publishing a picture of the highly controversial Mandela autopsy painting, Mthembu stated:

This unbridled freedom of the media, as evidenced by projection of this so called art in the Mail and Guardian, confirms that the self-regulated print media environment is a recipe for disaster and negates the core values we hold dear as the society as contained in our constitution.

All these statements have at least two very scary things in common. First, it shares an utter lack of understanding of freedom of expression and the media in a well-functioning constitutional democracy. Second it endorses a view that ideas, facts, practices or opinions that the ruling party opposes or thinks is dangerous or harmful (to itself, to the state?) should not be published in the media and that a Tribunal should regulate the media to stop them printing such things.

In an open and democratic society, the media is an important and powerful player. It would be naive to think that members of the media do not have political views and that such views are not reflected in the choices of stories they carry and the way these stories are told. What is excluded is often just as important as what is included.

That is why one does not have to be a rocket scientist to know that the SABC is close to a mouthpiece of the ANC, while ETV and the print media are more critical of the ANC. No wonder the ANC wins every election with more than 60% of the vote, as the SABC is the main source of information and news for almost 80% of South Africans.

A free media is important because it protects and enhances our human dignity. It does this by providing us with different views so that we can make up our own minds about who we are, what we think and how we want to live. A free media helps us to have some agency and thus to become people whose inherent human dignity is respected.

The diversity of views seem all important, which means that as a rule, the majority or the majority political party should not be able to tell the media what it can and cannot publish as this would infringe on the human dignity of every South African. If we know nothing except that which we are allowed to know by our leaders, we do not live lives of dignity. Instead we live lives as people who are only half human, cut off from a sense of self, part of a collective, yes, but not able to change our minds or decide for ourselves what is good or bad in our world and how we want to deal with this reality.

Of course, in a democracy, political parties try to woo the media to get them to write nice things about them. If they make mistakes, they try and manage the media to limit the negative effects of their mistakes. Helen Zille, as a former journalist, is quite good at this kind of media management when she keeps her paranoid anti-ANC rhetoric in check.  ANC leaders are seldom good at it and if they are (like Tokyo Sexwale) they are viewed with suspicion.

People who work in the real media (as opposed to those who work for the bureaucratic pro-state SABC) like to think of themselves as cool, intelligent and hip. When the ANC talks about the National Democratic Revolution, deploy fake revolutionary phrases that went out of fashion around the time that the USSR invaded Hungary, and talk about dark conspiracies by the enemies of the new order (by which they usually mean critics of the ANC and the government of the day), they alienate ordinary, decent, journalists who might otherwise have been ideologically rather close to the ANC.

What the ANC and the government it leads actually needs is not a Media Appeals Tribunal, but a media strategy to woo the non-state media to its side by talking the language of ordinary people and citizens. Instead of talking that fuax revolutionary drivel and blaming the Dark Lord Sauron, anti-transformation forces, the CIA or the Devil himself for their bad record on service delivery and for the bad publicity on corruption and the like, the ANC needs to face up to the facts and take quick and decisive action to correct mistakes to try and convince the real media that it really, really cares and is doing its best to stamp out corruption and to improve service delivery.

The ANC has been spoilt by its praise singers at the SABC, so it does not understand or respect real media freedom. Thus it cannot see the difference between disagreeing with something the media did (publishing the Mandela painting, for example) and demanding that the media be stopped from doing it. In a real democracy there are laws of defamation that protects the dignity of everyone and the media must operate within those laws but otherwise freedom of the media means exactly that: freedom to publish even things that the majority party does not like or finds despicable.

When the media does something that one really finds upsetting, one is of course entitled to criticise them. One can call the Mail and Guardian callous for publishing the painting of Mandela’s autopsy, or one can argue that the painting is just a really bad piece of art and that the Mail & Guardian has been sensationalistic and has shown a shocking lack of taste in publishing a “work of art” that is no more than a cheap and pathetic attempt to garner publicity for the artist.

That is all fair comment. But to suggest that the Mail & Guardian should not be allowed to publish the painting is to endorse a kind of censorship that cannot be squared with a constitutional democracy. I for one want to know what the fuss is about and want to make up my own mind on whether the painting is a cheap and pathetic publicity stunt or a meaningful and thought-provoking meditation on wisdom and learning.

The problem is that the ANC has not yet embraced the notion that its own views about what is right and wrong, what is acceptable or not, about what is an affront to the dignity of one of its leaders or not, is just that: its own view and one of many. It has not yet accepted that it does not speak on behalf of the nation (what a paternalistic notion!) and can thus not tell everyone what it is allowed to publish or to think. Its views – no matter how widely shared, cogent or laudable - is just one set of views.

There are many other views and if we want to live in a real democracy (and not the kind of fake democracy found in Hungary after 1956) we have to allow the many different views as long as the expression of these views stays within the bounds of the law of defamation.

This does not mean we cannot get upset or that we have no right to express our contempt and anger at the media. It just means that we cannot impose our own view – which is one of many different views that must be allowed to flourish in a society based on human dignity – on all.

Old finger-wagging PW (also known as “Die Groot Krokodil” – The Big Crocodile) used to call Eksteen regularly to complain about the SABC – especially the news programmes – and on one occasion even ordered Eksteen to “correct” the news bulletin while it was still in progress – something Eksteen happily did.

Botha also complained to Eksteen (he claimed on instructions of the State Security Council) about the broadcasting by the SABC of the science fiction programme called “V”. This series chronicled the arrival on Earth of a technologically advanced alien race who ostensibly come in peace but actually have sinister motives.

PW Botha complained that in the programme the ostensibly human-like aliens turned into crocodiles at night and ate the humans. He saw it as a personal attack on him (being called Die Groot Krokodil” and all) and when Eksteen agreed to move the programme to a later slot and to broadcast the episodes nightly to speed up its completion, Botha apparently remarked: “You can obviously not wait to see the country go up in flames.”

Since those dark days the SABC has come a long way. Although it has recently been in the news because of mismanagement and corruption and although the news programmes are far from independent (it clearly had a pro-Mbeki bias before the Polokwane conference), there has not been the same kind of scandalous direct interference by politicians as during the Botha era.

This might all change if the Public Service Broadcasting Bill, hastily published for comment last week, becomes law.  The Bill has the look and feel of an apartheid era piece of legislation, and contains phrases right out of the Christian Nationalist playbook. For example it states that the South African Broadcasting System must, inter alia, strengthen “the spiritual and moral fibre of society”. The last time I read about the “moral fibre of society” was during the reign of “Die Groot Krokodil” and to see this reactionary phrase repeated in draft legislation prepared by the ANC government comes as quite a shock.

The Bill is also, bizarrely, littered with typographical and other errors and in places reads like something cobbled together by Julius Malema and his dyslexic woodwork teacher. For example section 22 states that the affairs of a community broadcaster shall be “controlled by the Governing Council Governing Counsel (sic)” while section 25 states that Community Broadcasting Service “…shall be partnership  (sic) with municipalities…” and this partnership shall include “availability of information about development to by (sic) local municipalities”. Section 33(b) states that the “powers and actions contained in subsection 30(a) shall occur (sic) in cases where….”, but section 30(a) contains no powers and actions so the section on its face make no sense – even if one thinks that powers can “occur”. Section 35(3) states that “[i]n case of case (sic) the fine shall be paid into the PSB fund…”

But these are really minor if embarrassing problems compared to the other aspects of the Bill. Section 4 proposes the establishment of a Public Service Broadcasting Fund which shall be financed by raising no more than 1% from all us through a personal income tax levy. This makes the Bill a Money Bill as it purports to impose “national taxes, levies, duties or surcharges”, but section 77(2) of the Constitution makes clear that ordinarily a money Bill can only deal with money issues, which means this Bill dealing with broadcasting cannot impose any taxes.

Section 73(2) states that only the Minister of Finance can introduce a Money Bill in Parliament. The person who included these provisions in the Bill clearly did not pay attention during his or her Constitutional law class and did not bother to read the relevant sections of the Constitution before releasing the Bill for comment.

The Bill also proposes that the money raised by the 1% income tax will be disbursed by the Public Service Broadcasting Fund according to criteria developed by it but approved by the Minister and those who receive money must be subject to the Public Finance Management Act (PFMA). Anyone who has ever read the PFMA would have been able to tell you that if community broadcasters were subject to the provisions of the PFMA, they would – as Anton Harber stated earlier this week – have to close down within weeks because they would not be able to meet the onerous obligations imposed by this act.

Large parts of the Bill might also be unconstitutional because it infringes on section 192 of the Constitution which states that “[n]ational legislation must establish an independent authority [ICASA] to regulate broadcasting in the public interest, and to ensure fairness and a diversity of views broadly representing South African society”.

The power of ICASA as guaranteed by the Constitution is severely limited by this Bill while the powers of the Minister to interfere in the SABC is enhanced. The Bill states that the minister (and not ICASA as required by the Constitution) “is ultimately responsible for the effective monitoring of the implementation of the act”. Thus the Minister is empowered to  direct any of the entities mentioned in the Act (including ICASA and the SABC Board) to take any action in regard the act if that entity is unable to perform its function in terms of the act.

The Minister may also instruct the SABC board to take any action specified by the Minister if the SABC has failed to follow the instructions of the Minister in terms of the Act or has acted unfairly towards any person to whom it owns a duty in terms of the act.  This means if the Minister thinks the SABC has acted unfairly towards any employee of the SABC or any member of the public (maybe by not providing sufficient coverage of ANC or government events or by firing a corrupt SABC staffer!), he could instruct the SABC board to “correct” its “mistake” and if the board fails to do this, he will have the power to recommend the firing of the the board to Parliament.

The Bill is not a model of clarity, to say the least, but it is clear that the  intent of its drafters was to give the Minister a decisive say in the running of the SABC and to empower him to interfere with the day to day running of the SABC.

This is scary stuff.

I wonder what Koedoe Eksteen would make of this Bill.

Unfortunately it is also dangerous and undermines the establishment of a democratic culture.  South Africans all think they believe in democracy but there is not much evidence to support such a view. We have not had a long history of competitive elections – even when South Africa was still an oppressive apartheid state and only white people could vote for their whites only parties.

At least politicians and others in the public eye should pretend to understand and respect the difference between the governing party and the state (something several commentators on this Blog have embarrassingly failed to do over the years).

Sadly, this does not always happen. One of the most troubling and shocking examples of this  conflation of state and party comes to us via SABC Board member, Bheki Khumalo. Reporting on the ongoing disaster that is the SABC, the Sunday Independent reported as follows:

Referring to Mkonza’s comments that she would step down only if the shareholder  [of the SABC] decided that she was not fit to serve, Khumalo said the shareholder was the ANC, and that this was not a board of Woolworths or Chicken Licken and that the board should get urgent legal advice on the matter.

Oops, Mr Khumalo, you are so embarrassingly wrong that if I was you I would lock myself in a dark room for a week to hide away from the shame of making such an utter fool of myself.  One wonders whether he learnt nothing during his stint as spokesperson for former President Thabo Mbeki, but one fears that he might have learnt too well.

Of course, the shareholder of the SABC is not the ANC. The shareholder is the government, who happens, just for the moment, to be run by the ANC. Come the next election (or the one after that, or the one after that) us voters will throw out the ANC and a new party will govern South Africa. In a democracy voters always get tired of a governing party who will inevitably become more corrupt and inept as time goes by. It is a plain fact as obvious as the earth is round.

When the ANC is eventually thrown out by the voters, the shareholder of the SABC will remain the government – regardless of who will then form the government.

The statement by Khumalo is a howling Freudian slip and says much about how many ANC “deployees” see their jobs in government departments, on parastatal boards and on boards of a state broadcaster like the SABC.

Like that old democrat King Louis XIV of France, who said L’État c’est Moi (I am the State), people like Mr Khumalo (pity he never obtained a Phd because I would have loved to call him Doctor Khumalo) think that they are the state because they belong to a party who just happens to have gained the most votes in the last election.

The reason why this is so dangerous is that when this idea takes root that the state and the party is really the same thing, it becomes more and more difficult for some members of the party who are temporarily in charge to remember that they are only there because us voters put them there.

In such an atmosphere one starts to believe that only you and your party can run the country and when you are then thrown out by the voters you might be tempted to act like the authorities in that wonderful Poem by Bertold Brecht called The Solution:

After the uprising of the 17th June
The Secretary of the Writers Union
Had leaflets distributed in the Stalinallee
Stating that the people
Had forfeited the confidence of the government
And could win it back only
By redoubled efforts. Would it not be easier
In that case for the government
To dissolve the people
And elect another?

That is why Khumalo’s statement is so dangerous. That is also why Khumalo should of course immediately be asked to resign for making a statement that does not only demonstrate a breathtaking ignorance of the legal framework under which the SABC Board operates, but also a dangerous anti-democratic attitude.

The fact that this is not going to happen, says much about the state of democarcy in South Africa.

But if Mr Jacob Zuma is the Presidential candidate for the ANC, the new party might do quite well among middle class voters who might not want to vote for Mr. Umshini Wam. It is clear that much of the media has soured on Mr Zuma, much like the mainstream media soured on George W Bush after 2004. Exhibit A here is an article in The Times about Mr. Zuma’s weekend election trip to the Western Cape.

Money quote:

Zuma promised that food prices would come down, and that salaries for teachers, health sector staff and the police would go up. He promised jobs in rural areas. “There must be no more people moving from rural areas to urban areas to find jobs. We must take jobs to those areas. That’s why you must vote for the ANC. We will open opportunities in Eastern Cape and other areas,” said Zuma.

Turning to crime, he quipped: “When I think about crime, I think about going out now to look for the criminals.” But the big bang was at the Langa stadium, where the heat didn’t deter a crowd of almost 10000.

Some grew bored halfway into Zuma’s speech and demanded a tune. Hecklers shouted: “Sing!” Of course, Zuma didn’t fail to oblige, singing his infamous Umshini wam.

This happened repeatedly and it was enough to tempt one to reach for a machine gun and put an end to the inappropriate song. But the Langa crowd, some of the poorest voters in the country, wanted the joker and entertainer. That, and tough talk on crime and calls for supporters not to leave the ANC like the other “snakes”.

The tone of this article is, at best, mocking. If I was an ANC NWC member I would be fuming about the obvious tone of ridicule permeating the article. No wonder Jessie Duarte and Gwede Mantashe met with SABC executives to complain about the way in which His Masters Voice depicts the leader of the ANC. All that dancing and singing Umshini Wam does not really inspire respect and confidence in the potential leader of South Africa, so they wanted the SABC to stop showing what really happened at Zuma rallies and stick to the ANC script.

But some SABC journalists obviously also do not have much respect for the dancing politicians with the habit of uttering scary if vague platitudes.

If this in any way reflects how middle class South Africans feel about Zuma, the ANC might get a bit of a shock at the election next year. But who knows what will happen? And maybe the SABC will come through for the ANC and tone down its (recently more) honest and fair coverage of our next President. Only time will tell.

This Act must be interpreted in the light of the values and rights enshrined in the Constitution – including the right to freedom of expression and the right to human dignity.

When political leaders are in the news, it would therefore be perfectly legitimate for the SABC to interview those leaders – even at length – to ask them the challenging questions that would allow voters to form opinions about those leaders and the events in the news. As long as this is done in a fair manner to cover all aspects of the news events and as long as individual South Africans are not denied access to all the relevant information they need to make informed decisions. The Constitution requires the public broadcaster to provide a wide array of ideas and views because where individuals are deprived of such views their human dignity is affected.

As I understand the Constitutional Courts interpretation of the right to human dignity, it would require the public broadcaster to provide individuals with sufficient, clear and comprehensive information to enable them to make decisions about their own lives, thus about who they are and how they want to live their lives. This would include information that will empower individuals to make informed decisions about how they are going to vote or which political party they wish to join (or leave). When individuals are deprived of information or provided with one-sided information, the dignity of those individuals are not respected or protected because those individuals are denied the opportunity to act according to their own conscience and beliefs. They are denied full agency.

I am therefore not sure whether the decision by the SABC to have a long interview with the President of the ANC in prime time tonight was either wise or legally and constitutionally justified. Mr Jacob Zuma is the leader of the largest political party in South Africa – albeit a party who seems to be splitting in two – so the SABC was clearly entitled to interview him at length and to grill him on the most recent developments in his party.

But that would only give listeners and viewers half the story. A broadcaster that respected the dignity of its listeners and viewers would also interview (at length) other role players in this drama to present their side of the story so that ordinary voters could then decide whether they wanted to stick with the ANC or whether they wanted to follow the Lekota faction. If the SABC only interviews Zuma and ignores Lekota, it is in effect disrespecting the human dignity of ordinary individuals, who are not treated as people with agency who have a right to make up their own minds about issues.

In such a scenario the SABC becomes a propaganda tool of the ANC, used to try and minimise the effects of the split by giving the leader of the ANC extended free coverage in an attempt to help stop the political bleeding of his party. It is difficult not to view the decision of the SABC to interview Zuma at length at this particular juncture as a move to act as the ANC’s propaganda arm. Failure to provide other important leaders in this drama (Lekota or Shilowa) equal or almost equal time would signal an utter disregard for the dignity of viewers and listeners and would not be commensurate with the legal mandate of the SABC.

Failure to treat the major role players in this developing political drama in an even-handed and fair way would suggest that the SABC is an ANC lackey and that it has about as much credibility in the news department as George Bush has in the weapons of mass destruction department.

Not that I am surprised. After all, Snuki (Phd Bulgaria) and his henchmen are in charge at Faulty Towers again.

The Times reports this morning that Baleka Mbete will take over as acting President, but as I read the Constitution this is not possible unless the entire cabinet resigns as well. Even then the Speaker can only act as President until the National Assembly designates another of its members as acting President. The reason for this is that the separation of powers between the legislature and the executive makes it unwise for the Speaker of Parliament to head the national executive and only requires this as a last resort for as short a period as possible.

The SABC plans a live broadcast to carry this announcment. We will then hear what wil happen next and what the position of the cabinet is in all of this.

The final version of the Bill recently passed by Parliament to amend the manner in which the SABC Board is appointed and fired must surely be such a Bill. If I was Mujanku Gumbi I would advise the President not to sign this Bill and to refer it back to Parliament.

This is because the Bill seems to provide for an inappropriate conflation of  the executive power – exercised by the President – and legislative power – exercised by the Speaker, nogal – as it dilutes the power of the President to appoint the SABC Board and to determine its term of office by stating that the President must fulfill these functions “in consultation with” the Speaker of Parliament.

Thus the head of Parliament and the head of the executive are now required to exercise this function jointly. This raises a separation of powers concern between the legislature and the executive. The Speaker is not given executive powers by the Constitution while this Bill purports to give her such power, thus probably rendering these sections unconstitutional. These sections are also nonsensical because the President and the Speaker do not have an discretion but must appoint the Board “on the advice of the National Assembly” which probably mean these two MUST appoint the Board as recommended by the National Assembly.

The Bill also states that the chairperson of the Board will no longer be appointed by the President on his or her discretion but must be appointed “on recommendation of” the National Assembly by the President acting in consultation with the Speaker. It is unclear what the difference is between “on recommendation of” and “on advice of”, but it could be argued the former provides for a discretion for the President and the Speaker to appoint a chairperson after taking into account the recommendation of the NA. This is also almost certainly unconstitutional.

The Bill also provides for the President and the Speaker MUST remove a member of the Board after the NA adopted a resolution to this effect on rather broad grounds including “inability to perform the duties of his or her office efficiently”. No inquiry is needed and the NA can decide whether a member of the Board failed to perform his or her functions efficiently. Efficiency is such a broad term that it allows for removal on completely non-objective terms as the majority party in Parliament may decide.

The Bill also states that the President and the Speaker MUST remove the ENTIRE Board on the basis of one of the following criteria: if it fails to discharge its fiduciary duties; it fails to adhere to the Charter of the SABC; or it fails to carry out its duties in terms of this Charter to pursue its objectives and exercise its powers, to provide creative and programming independence.

These grounds are extraordinary broad and leaves the door wide open for abuse by a majority party in Parliament. In effect the Board will now be accountable to the Parliament and if it fails to do what Parlaiment wants, it can be fired – even without having a proper hearing into the matter. It can therefore be argued that it kills off the independence of the SABC Board and thus of the Public Broadcaster because the Board will be beholden to the NA for their jobs.

If the Board fails to perform in accordance with the National Assembly wishes, it could be fired at will. It is unclear whether this is an infringement of the Constitution as section 192 of the Constitution merely states that “National legislation must establish an independent authority to regulate broadcasting in the public interest, and to ensure fairness and a diversity of views broadly representing South African society”. If the Broadcasting Act is seen as part of this legislative framework it is a problem. But if this section merely refers to ICASA – the body overseeing all broadcasting in South Africa – it is not. The latter interpretation is less strained.

On a more principled level (for what its worth) the problem with the Bill is that it legislates for a specific situation and not for the future or in general terms. It tries to fix the problem that arose when the ANC MPs were instructed to appoint members of the Board it had not agreed to. This is the worst kind of expediency and a very bad way to legislate. One should not legislate for a specific event because it is a kind of erosion of the Rechstaats principle that law should have general application.