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
Whatever did he mean?
This interesting tidbit caught my eye:
The ANC’s Eastern Cape leadership has renewed its call for President Thabo Mbeki to stand for a third term as party leader. Provincial chairperson Stone Sizani asked the crowd at the opening of the party’s provincial office in King William’s Town on Friday what it was Mbeki needed to do.
Some within the crowd responded eagerly by holding three fingers in the air – representing three terms as ANC president. The crowd roared with support when Mbeki responded humorously in isiXhosa that he had 10 fingers, not only three.
