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
Yet the ANC’s own “Second Transition” document acknowledges that there are worrying signs in the country, which can only be attributable to weak leadership. The documents quote the National Planning Commission’s indicators of “societies in decline” relevant to South Africa today: “rising corruption, weakening of state and civil society institutions, poor economic management, skills and capital flight, politics dominated by short-termism, ethnicity or factionalism, and the lack of maintenance of infrastructure and standards of service.” The implication therefore is that only the ANC is allowed to debate the state of the nation and anyone else who attempts to do so must be beaten into submission. It is a tactic Mantashe’s arch nemesis, Julius Malema, mastered – to insult and ridicule anyone who dares to have a different view. – Ranjeni Munusamy in a Daily Maverick column about the ANC response to remarks made by Nedbank chairman Reuel Khoza on the state of the country’s political leadership
