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.
It’s also meant making some serious compromises. A few days ago, the EFF paid the necessary fealty to King Goodwill Zwelithini on the happy occasion of his own birthday. The King is hardly the friend you want if you’re trying to portray your party as committed to ethnically inclusive, forward-thinking progressivism. But he is power around these parts, and standing alongside him as he celebrates his eleventy-thousandth birthday is good politics.
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