Democracy brings little change for the homeless
Cape Town, 28 April 2014 - While South Africans across the country are celebrating 20 years of democracy, a group of homeless people who call the pavement outside Parliament buildings home...
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Democracy brings little change for the homeless - Video
IPF - Excerpt from Democracy Now/w Amy Goodman on April 29, 2014
International Prolife Federation aka IPF Productions presents "Excerpt from Democracy Now/with Amy Goodman on April 29, 2014"....for complete video of this News Broadcast contact http://www.DemocracyNow.org.
By: Ernestine Standberry
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IPF - Excerpt from Democracy Now/w Amy Goodman on April 29, 2014 - Video
JOHANNESBURG Twenty years ago, South Africa ended decades of oppression under white-minority rule and embraced the dawning of a new democracy. The year 1994 ushered in a new era of hope for South Africans when the country held its first fully democratic elections and elected its first Black president, Nelson Mandela. Mandelas African National Congress has dominated politics ever since and the country has curbed political violence, demolished discriminatory laws and provided basic health care, housing, welfare grants and clean water to millions of impoverished citizens. However, South Africa celebrates two decades of multi-racial democracy against a backdrop of rising joblessness, inequality, labor strikes and corruption within President Jacob Zumas government. Nobel Peace Prize winner Archbishop Desmond Tutu had hoped 20 years ago that South Africa would become a thriving all-inclusive Rainbow Nation and a shining light for the African continent to follow. But some analysts said that vision has not been realized. I personally had great hopes of South Africa leading the continent. For a while, being the continents biggest economy and also a strong democracy - South Africa seemed poised to be the natural leader of the continent and I expected Zuma to, even Mbeki, to have a more robust and clearer international policy, said Kennedy Opalo, a Kenyan doctoral candidate in the Department of Political Science at Stanford University in the United States.
Opalo argued that South African foreign policy has been a failure and poor leadership has slowly eroded the great expectations many in Africa had two decades ago.
(N)ow I think most young people when they think of South Africa, they think of striking miners not necessarily this beacon of hope for the rest of the continent, he said.
A three-month strike has crippled the world's biggest platinum industry, resulting in flaring violence in the mining belt and police clashes. The strike has been the most damaging in South Africa's history, leaving large parts of the mining belt in dire financial need. Voter discontent
As South Africans prepare for elections, there is widespread discontent directed at the ANC, the liberation party that promised better equality when it took power 20 years ago. Although the number of people living in extreme poverty has fallen since 1994, at least 24 percent of the country's workforce is chronically unemployed. The ruling-party has been marred by corruption scandals. A government watchdog report recently revealed that President Zuma misspent $23 million of state-funds to upgrade his private home. Despite widespread disappointment with the pace of South Africas development since the end of apartheid, it still compares favorably with many of its neighbors who struggle just to hold free and fair elections. Nigeria, Africas most populous nation, recently overtook South Africa as the continents biggest economy, but the West African nation still lags behind its southern neighbor in terms of the sophistication of its democracy, according to Abubakar Umar Kari, a politics lecturer at the University of Abuja. In terms of the credibility of elections - the elections in South Africa have remained fairly consistent and fairly credible unlike the ones in West Africa - particularly in Nigeria, where organizations, conduct and outcomes of elections are often overshadowed with controversies, disputes, agitation and crisis, Kari stated. In these elections, polls indicate South Africans are expected to keep the long ruling ANC and Jacob Zuma in power for an additional five years. The margin of victory may be less than in previous votes, due to growing discontent with poor service delivery and growing graft. But that may be because South Africas democracy lacks effective opposition parties - denting its credentials. Professor Robert Mattes is the Director of the Democracy in the Africa Research Unit at the University of Cape Town and co-founder of the Afrobarometer, a regular survey of public opinion in 18 African countries. South Africa itself - I think - is not one of the democracy leaders on the continent, he said. Conflict resolution
He argued that South Africa has had a pivotal role in conflict resolution, but its democracy is not as sophisticated as others in Africa. Afrobarometer polls reveal South Africas public attitude is a step behind places like Botswana and Ghana, in terms of how people understand democracy. Ghanaians have a clearer understanding about what democracy is about. They are much more strongly in support of it whereas, a lot of South Africans kind of still entertain - they think democracy is almost consistent with one party government or one party rule, said Mattes. Ghana and Zambia have succeeded in peaceful transitions of power between opposing political parties following elections. Mattes said many consider a handover of power to be a significant test of the strength of a countrys democracy. The country just hasnt been pressed on that yet, the ANC has not come that close to losing actual power so one wonders how they would react if that ever became a reality, said Mattes. In April, F.W. de Klerk, the nations last white president said that despite the challenges For 20 years millions of South Africans have been able to lead their lives and pursue their dreams in conditions of relative peace, personal dignity and harmony" and that, he said, makes South Africa today a much better and fairer country than it was before 27 April 1994.
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South Africa: A Model of Democracy?
Tulsathit Taptim
The Nation
Publication Date : 30-04-2014
Democracy's biggest flaw, perhaps, is its tendency to force everyone to bite off more than they can chew. When an overwhelmed team runs a corporation, the worst-case scenario is bankruptcy for those concerned. When a group of people has to do everything "for" a country after winning an election, there is no limit to how bad things can get.
This is not an anti-democracy argument. This is an argument for some serious reconsideration of the orthodox belief that, in a democracy there must be only one winner who gets to do everything. The "requirements" are too many nowadays and the circumstances very different from the days when all that rulers needed to do was guard the walls and feed hungry mouths.
Pheu Thai may be good when it comes to welfare for the grassroots but it may be bad at setting good ethical examples. The Democrats may be good at laying down education foundations but they may be bad at taking bold steps or handling public health. Chart Thai may be good at agricultural development but bad at setting visions for scientific development. Democracy is supposed to pull them together, accentuating the good and blocking the bad. But the actual situation has done anything but.
In our current system, Pheu Thai get to control the Justice Ministry, governing ethical standards, the Democrats oversee a time-sensitive infrastructure overhaul and Chart Thai lead scientific pioneering. There is no consideration paid to putting the right man in the right job, except maybe when it comes to the appointment of the finance minister.
And now, enter corruption. Over time, the "winner-does-all" arrangement has forged a "winner-gets-all" mentality. You want to win an election not out of the desire to serve, but because there's an ICT Ministry out there that can help your parallel businesses. You want to be in government because getting to oversee the agricultural sector will prove very lucrative. You win one election and the ICT and Agriculture ministries are yours, and it doesn't really matter whether you are really qualified to run them or not.
If democracy is the best there is, why shouldn't we take it to the extreme? Why not have separate elections for key sectors like education, agriculture, defence, foreign affairs, and so on? If we can't, tell me why.
1. Democracy is a great system, perhaps the best system for governing a country ever invented by man.
2. What can be better than a government of the people, by the people, for the people. And most of the developed countries are democratic, obviously benefiting from the system.
3. Does this mean that all countries which are governed democratically will be stable, prosperous and developed? The great democracies of the West seem to think so. Such is their faith in the system that they are willing to kill and destroy in order to promote democracy. They have now decided to bring about regime change in order to democratise the undemocratic countries. If you resist democratisation they will kill you and destroy your country. And so they did in Iraq and are doing so in the Arab countries and elsewhere.
4. It is assumed that the people, or at least the majority of the people would be wise enough to choose the most capable people to rule them. Unfortunately the people do not always choose the most capable. They may be influenced by race, religion, ideology and a host of other factors when electing their governments.
5. They may also choose because of money. In fact in most cases their choices are based on immediate personal gain rather than national interest.
6. Because of all these democracy has often failed to provide countries with good governance. Indeed it may result in dividing the people into parties and groups and pit them against each other.
7. If there are only two parties it is possible for one or the other to achieve a clear majority and to form the Government. But when there are more than two, it is entirely possible for no one party getting a clear majority of the seats in the legislature to form a Government.
8. In a two party system a small majority may weaken the Government due to fear of defection by its members. Only a Government with a big majority can provide stable and effective Governments.
9. As stated above when there are numerous parties it is likely that none would achieve a majority (50%+) to form the Government. A coalition may need to be formed in order to achieve a majority. Such a post-election coalition Government would always be threatened by defections of a coalition partner and so losing the majority. The Government would thus always be weak and unstable.
10. However, a pre-election coalition stands a better chance of winning a good majority especially if the coalition acts as a party fielding only one candidate in each constituency.
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