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
God better hurry up then….
From the Mail & Guardian online:
President Robert Mugabe said on Friday that “only God” could remove him from office, as Zimbabwe’s opposition considered pulling out of next week’s run-off election amid escalating violence.
“The MDC will never be allowed to rule this country — never, ever,” Mugabe told local business people in Zimbabwe’s second city, Bulawayo, referring to the opposition Movement for Democratic Change. “Only God who appointed me will remove me — not the MDC, not the British.”
