The first problem one encounters is the question as to what Mandela’s legacy really means – I put it as his ability to reach out – to (amongst other things) encourage reconciliation, political tolerance and human rights. While the top brass of the ANC will continue to preach this when confronted, most will agree that all too often they are silent.

The Battle for the Western Cape
A while back I blogged about Julius Malema making a fool of himself when he spoke at UCT. One of his statements was that “people in the Western Cape engage with the coloniser”. Fast forward to post the elections and we have an ANC rep writing in the Cape Times the following:

The key message is that uncivilised Africans want to wrest the last European outpost from white liberal dominance. These divisions are so severe that were it to be put to a referendum right now, the majority of citizens would support a Unilateral Declaration of Independence – The Republic of the Western Cape.

The growing, but still obscure, debate around secession aside – this statement is nothing less than insulting. It suggests that the only reason the opposition won the Western Cape is because of racism and that the province does not subscribe to the ideals of a united and non-racial South Africa.

This sentiment along with the MK Vets and Casatu threatening to make the province ‘ungovernable’ show a serious disregard for democracy and more importantly the values I’d like to think Nelson Mandela holds. To my knowledge he wasn’t too phased, at least in this manner, with the ANC not winning all provinces back in ‘94.

Satire
But the main contradiction I’ve found between the days of Mandela and the current ANC leadership lies in the role of the media – and one Zapiro. This is best illustrated with the following two videos; I’ve summarised the important bits if you’re not up to watching them.

In this video, of Zapiro launching one of his books, he talks of being called by Mandela who was complaining about him changing the newspapers he was being published in. Watch the video for the full story – but essentially what Zapiro found so impressive was that Mandela considered the cartoonist’s critism of him being part of his job.

Then we get to the infamous leaked Special Assigmnent documentary on satire.

In this video we see the ANC’s spokesperson accusing satirists of being right wing counter-revolutionary racists (I forget her exact words – but that was the general message).

The two viewpoints – that satire is important and that it is despicable – highlight for me the biggest shift from the days of Mandela. Jacob Zuma can go on for as long as he wants about working together, but his party’s members are making baseless and inflamiatory statements and his party refuses to give the chairmanship of Scopa (which is held by an opposition party) to the official opposition simply as ‘punishment’ for what Helen Zille said – disregarding the voter’s second choice. This is a clear contradiction with the Mandela days.

The rest of my response had to do with democratic values and the rule of law; but essentially my conclusion was that things could go either way in South Africa. I don’t think the country is simply going to collapse – but the kind of attitudes I’ve written about here are certainly worrying.

The Acting NDPP quoted in his statement, from a Supreame Court of Appeal judgements (which incidently invloved the Zuma matter), the following:

“A prosecution is not wrongful merely because it is brought for an improper purpose. It will only be wrongful if, in addition, reasonable and probable grounds for prosecuting are absent, something not alleged by Mr Zuma and which in any event can only be determined once criminal proceedings have been concluded. The motive behind the prosecution is irrelevant because, as Schreiner JA said in connection with arrests, the best motive does not cure an otherwise illegal arrest and the worst motive does not render an otherwise legal arrest illegal. The same apply to prosecutions.”

That text is very clear – just because someone manipulated a process does not mean that the whole trail should be stopped, because justice has not yet taken its course.

Some commentators drew parrells with the how search warrents, if obtained illegally, are inadmissable in court. However there are no similarities here – particularly in the context of what interference is alledged (and note that after all the talk of Zuma being presumed innocent we have to allow room for some explanation for the tapes) to have taken place.

The infamous tapes implicate interferance in the decision as to the date of the announcement of the re-charging of Zuma around the time of the ANC Polokwane conference. The timing of this announcement has no impact on the case against Zuma – the NPA would present the same case in court regardless. Rather it had political ramefications – impact on the elections for the next president of the ANC.

As the acting NDPP put it himself – “It is not so much the prosecution itself that is tainted, but the legal process itself.”

Again the acting NDPP’s own words sets the final context around which the final decision should have been made (own emphasis added):

“There will always be a tension between two extreme positions in that, if a trial is discontinued, the public perception would be that the criminal justice system condones improper conduct and malpractice by law enforcement agencies – and if a trial is discontinued the criminal justice system will incur the reproach that it is failing to protect the public from serious crime.

An assessment of abuse of process involves a balancing exercise. In Latif it was clear that a fair trial was possible. The overriding question, however, was whether the trial ought to be discontinued “on broader considerations of the integrity of the criminal justice system”. According to Lord Steyn, criminal proceedings may be discontinued not only where there will be no fair trial but also where it would be contrary to the public interest in the integrity of the criminal justice system that a trial should take place.”

So now we have to weigh the two senarios up: on the one hand we have an individual, admitidly an important one, accused of moving the date of an announcement for political gain and on the other hand we have the NPA continuing to insist that it has a winable case against Mr Zuma and that nothing has convinced them otherwise.

The prosecution of Zuma, regardless of what the tripartiate alliance tries to tell us, is in the public interest. He is accused of manipulating serious processes for personal gain at the expense of citizens and so these accusations must be persued to the courts until their truth or lack-thereof is established.

It is with this in mind that one has to conclude that, atleast for the reasons given, the decision to drop charges is wrong. The interferance in the case is serious and must be investigated, but has no bearing on the outcome or fairness of the case itself. Jacob Zuma was undoubtably treated unfairly – but his rights to a fair trial were not infringed. There isn’t much else to it.

It’s nice and all getting updates from the leader of the opposition. But Twitter is meant to be about conversation – with that nifty little reply feature. So far we’re just getting a one way conversation here – as far as I can tell Ms Zille does not reply to questions, at all.

This came out of me asking who the other faces on the DA’s election posters are (I think the same people are on the website…) and getting no response – but a quick search along with her profile suggests that it’s just what happens.

• “The Libyan leader also sympathised with Somali pirates, describing their actions as self-defence.”
• “He also raised eyebrows by saying that multi-party democracy only led to bloodshed in Africa and that the best model for Africa was his own country, where opposition parties are not allowed.”

Every adult citizen has the right ­to vote in elections for any legislative body established in terms of the Constitution

So with that settled one has to wonder if this will happen this election. The FF+ has moved to delay the election for time to confirm all of this and I’m sure that the practicalities of all of this will be easily worked out in time.

The ‘nightmare’

However what was most surprising was the Electoral Institute of Southern Africa (never heard of them before actually) suggesting that the ruling is impractical and costly. So here is your rebuttal of Mr Pitso’s concerns, nicely bulleted for easy reading.

• “it would mean setting up voting stations across the globe… it will impact on the closing date of the voters roll…”

  Naturally the closing date of the voters roll will have to be changed to register all these new votes – but that should not be a serious concern: a month or so extra to provide citizens with their right isn’t too much to ask.

  The real issue is the setting up of new voting stations. South Africans are already eligible to vote overseas under certain (very restrictive) conditions, so voting stations are already open in our Embassies. Expanding these is unlikely to put a huge strain on resources, considering all the processes already exist.

• “Pitso said the IEC would also have to create awareness about polling stations in foreign countries which entailed advertising across the globe, another hefty expense.”

  While the IEC letting South African’s know about their new-found right to vote would be nice, few would expect them to advertise to the British public that the few South Africans amongst them can now vote. As long as the right is provided for, let the political parties alert voters.

• “The largest hurdle for the IEC would be to ascertain exactly how many potential voters there were in each country in order to determine where to set up stations and what the manpower requirements of these stations should be.”

  Well that’s why we have voter registration, so the IEC knows that. Simple.

• “Embassies in foreign countries were typically used for citizens to cast their ballots. The IEC would have to staff voting stations set up at embassies with independent workers.”

  See first point, already happens.

Estimates put the number of potentially eligable voters overseas at 2 million. Obviously we cannot expect that number to take part, but this new development is sure to change the dynamics of the next election. All for the better of course.

My plan is to make something similar for these elections, matching users to the parties. Of course I need to work out what the most pressing issues are and research the different party lines – the latter will be easy, but compiling a list of the issues is tricky. I’ve started bellow – please do comment and suggest additions.

• The Scorpions
• Land Reform
• The new matric
• Affirmative Action / Black Economic Empowerment
• Electoral Reform
• The Springbok Emblem
• The powers of the Minister of Sport over national teams
• Arms Deal Commission of Enquiry
• ‘Cadre’ deployment
• Private health care
• Zimbabwe
• Border Control
• Climate Change
• Liquor curfews

Hopefully things will not go that far; it seems like Parliament will rubber-stamp Pikoli’s fireing, but if my following of the excellent Constitutionally Speaking blog has suggested anything then this whole fiasco is challengable in court – and let’s hope someone does challenge it.

I’ve fired off an email to the address listed on the website and copied in a few political parties. Hopefully others will do the same to highlight how much we don’t like this.

The perfect rebuttal of this, saving me a bit of time, is found at MorrocoBoard.com – the most damning bit being the following:

The South African delegation voted against resolution on human rights in Myanmar and a British proposal for a briefing on the situation in Zimbabwe, while pushing for similar resolutions against other members of the UN. The South African “undiplomatic” reign over the UNSC was decidedly divisive and non inclusive throwing another blow to the hope of millions of Africans to see their conferences addressed and their voices heard.

If that isn’t enough, our prevention of UN action in Zimbabwe and our assistance in blocking the resolutions on Myanmar, just help to further show what a disaster our time in the powerful chamber has been. Our delegation even voted against a resolution condeming rape as a weapon of war – as the aptly title post South Africa: Supporting Oppression and Torture Abroad shows. (althought to be honest I struggled to find verification of this – but still).

I’m not a huge fan of our government, but generally I am pretty positive about South Africa – yet this is one of this things, when I think about, I believe is disgraceful. I’m not the only one – but I’m surprised I can’t find more bloggers making a deal about this.

There are two sides to this. On the one, national coverage of Khutsong has been guaranteed. On the other,  this isn’t really how democracy is meant to work.

This proclamation implies that regardless of what happens the ANC will be supported and is far less significant for the ANC than, say, an endorsment for COPE. Too bad.