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
On the corrupt Ace Magashule
Controversial ANC secretary general and Free State Premier Ace Magashule is implicated in a dodgy property deal with the Free State Development Corporation (FDC) that saw his long-lost daughter score R9 million for doing nothing. … With the previous business shut down, the FDC could now start the process of transferring the property to Magashule’s daughter. Two sources familiar with the FDC’s handling of this deal claim that “the big man”, a reference to Magashule, had exerted pressure on FDC staff to ensure that Malembe’s trust became the property’s new owner. “When the FDC’s handling of this deal was questioned internally, FDC staff were told to keep out of it, seeing as the big man was behind it,” says one such source. Magashule denies this claim.
