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
If the ANC’s critique of liberal democracy was accompanied by attempts to deepen democracy by, for instance, decommodifiying electoral politics and access to the courts, enabling participatory budgeting, supporting independent community media and encouraging independent popular organisation, its position would be credible. But given that its critique of liberal democracy is being accompanied by a shift in power to securocrats rather than popular forces, and repression rather than opening, its opposition to liberal democracy can only be understood as anti-democratic. – Richard Pithouse on the The South African Civil Society Information Service website.
