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
[T]here is an almost fascistic tone to the rhetoric of some on the political right which can stretch from Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman’s Yisrael Beiteinu party to younger members of the governing Likud, the prime minister’s party, and also to some in its Mizrachi base, that is, those who descend from Islamic countries and poorer sectors of the population. They certainly are soft on the thugs of the settler movement who try to intimidate both Palestinian Arabs and Israeli peaceniks. And they are adept at manipulating administrative law through the bureaucracies and the courts to burden Arab life, both in Israel and the territories. There is also a certain militaristic cast to their ways. Moreover, they are sure that, if they don’t win this political battle and that, the apocalypse is just around the corner. This is the ugliest part of Israeli political life. – Marty Peretz, TNR.
