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
Equal Education Seminar: Was SA sold out in 1994?
EE Seminar – “Was SA Sold Out in 1994? Economic Choices at the Transition?”
This Thursday Equal Education will be hosting a seminar about the nature of the economic transition in South Africa in the early 1990s. The topic is titled: “Was South Africa sold out in 1994? A public debate on the economic choices at the time of the transition.”
This was prompted by an article (“How the ANC’s Faustian pact sold out South Africa’s poorest“) written by Ronnie Kasrils in the Gaurdian in which he asserts that the ANC had, in the past, failed to make favourable decisions which would lead to more radical economic change in South Africa. He continues by stating that these decisions, in the transitory period of 1990, resulted in deepened inequality and poverty.
The panel includes Ronnie Kasrils (Former Minister of Intelligence and ANC NEC member), Rob Petersen (Adv of the High Court of South Africa) and Yoliswa Dwane (Chairperson of Equal Education). The session will be chaired by Fatima Hassan (Executive Director of the Open Society Foundation for South Africa).
Details:
Venue: Lecture Theatre 1, Humanities Graduate Building, University of Cape Town
Time: 17:30 – 19:30
