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
As for President Zuma, I doubt he has “dealt” with Malema the way the papers have been suggesting. We will see. Durban exposed his weaknesses rather than strengths. Speaking in code to an organisation you supposedly run doesn’t sound like leadership to me and nothing he says is going to happen ever seems to happen. Remember those “street committees” ANC branches were going to form after Polokwane to protect us all? The one thing Zuma cannot live with is certainty. The moment he supports a policy position he opens himself up to attack from factions who don’t. It’s why he announced yesterday he was going to head an investigation into everything in the economy — it means there’s to be no certainty about anything except the fact that he doesn’t have a position on anything. It’ll always be “under investigation”. – Peter Bruce in Business Day
