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
JOEL NETSHITENZHE ON ZUMA
And then there was the cabinet reshuffle, which even officials of the ANC felt obliged to publicly disown — the bitter fruit SA has started to reap. All this is in total and arrogant disregard of ANC policies and its electoral interests, let alone the cause of social transformation. These instances demonstrate a divergence between a strange coterie, on the one hand, and the ANC on the other, which is meant to be the strategic centre of power for its members.
