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
Kebble got value for donation says ANC
In his affidavit, Msimang said “donors receive value for the funds donated” through the “indirect benefit” that their companies operated in a political climate “which was borne through the gallant effort and contribution of the ANC”.
Msimang said that by donating to the ANC, Kebble was “maintaining an institution of democracy which (enabled) him to acquire his wealth, which in (turn), enabled him to operate his business in a democratic state free of racism, economic sanctions and free of all the negativity brought by (apartheid)”.
This argument is so preposterous, it could have been made up by The Onion. It is as if the ANC people are mocking themselves. It also seems to reflect – more darkly – the view that only the ANC can run South Africa and keep the peace and thus, by implication, that onmly the ANC has a right to rule the country.
I cannot imagine that the court would agree with this argument and then the ANC will have to pay back the money in any case. Why make such a fool of yourself if you know the chances of winning is very slim? The most obvious answer is that one makes such answers if one is exctremely arrogant and does not really care what people think. Or maybe more correctly, one does not care what the chattering classes think who actually read newspapers.
