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
Poplak on the Local Government election
“Cast your eyes at the board,” said a grim-faced Duarte, of the vast screen that dominated the electoral centre. “Since the 2014 national elections, four million morepeople have voted for the ANC — to me, that it is not a defeat. That is nothing to sneeze away. And local elections here historically and internationally have a lower voter output. That doesn’t mean we’re losing the country.” But, Duarte was just being Duarte, and had screwed up the numbers. This was a local election, over the course of which punters tick one ballot for a ward councilor, another for popular representation and, outside the metros, a third for a district municipality.
