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
Corruption is the elite’s way to steal from the poor, Cosatu general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi said in Johannesburg on Thursday. “It has become a matter of life and death. Corruption is the biggest threat to the realisation of our dreams,” he told an anti-corruption summit. “Self-enrichment will unravel the fabric of society.” Vavi said up to 20 percent of government procurement was lost to corruption as officials exploited gaps in the system to procure government tenders. “We are facing a nightmare future in South Africa… people are systematically using their power to secure… parts of society.” He said if the current economic system of capitalism continued with the “me first” mentality, it would be difficult to root out corruption. “The culture of me first accumulates and accumulates that one person in this country earns R627 million per year… while workers earn less than R1500 per month,” said Vavi. – Sapa
