Quote of the week
Universal adult suffrage on a common voters roll is one of the foundational values of our entire constitutional order. The achievement of the franchise has historically been important both for the acquisition of the rights of full and effective citizenship by all South Africans regardless of race, and for the accomplishment of an all-embracing nationhood. The universality of the franchise is important not only for nationhood and democracy. The vote of each and every citizen is a badge of dignity and of personhood. Quite literally, it says that everybody counts. In a country of great disparities of wealth and power it declares that whoever we are, whether rich or poor, exalted or disgraced, we all belong to the same democratic South African nation; that our destinies are intertwined in a single interactive polity.
August and Another v Electoral Commission and Others (CCT8/99) [1999] ZACC 3
Corruption and political expediency – an illustrated guide
The following graphic by Media24 seems to illustrate, in pictures, what is wrong with our Police Service and with those politicians who use the Police Service to fight their political battles (inside and outside the ANC) or to enrich themselves. It also illustrates why we need a truly independent corruption fighting body that will be able to investigate these kinds of allegations and will be free from political interference by the Police Minister or the President.
Minister Nathi Mthethwa, who mislead the public last week about the use of a secret police fund to pay for a “security fence” around his home and has not yet apologised for misleading us, and President Jacob Zuma, who has been linked to Mdluli but has not made any statements about his reinstatement and the order by his Police Minister to stop an investigation into Mdluli’s alleged corrupt activities, owe citizens an explanation. In the absence of such an explanation all reasonable people will be hard pressed not to conclude that the Minister and the President – if not themselves implicated in this web of alleged corruption – is condoning it for purely short term political purposes.
