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
Malema’s rights to freedom of movement and assembly have undoubtedly been infringed. The decision to charge him a week before the opening of ANC leadership nominations does not merely look like an example of selective prosecution, it appears to be a celebration of it. It seems to be a deliberate and shocking demonstration of the capacity of Zuma’s faction to institute — and also to suspend — police investigations and criminal prosecutions. Moyo’s conclusion is that there is “clearly more than enough on the horizon to warrant putting South Africa on a Sadc security watch list — without ruling out (later) placing the beleaguered country on the agenda of the (Sadc) Organ Troika”. – Anthony Butler in Business Day
