South Africa

The recent troubles in Delmas over the Typhoid epidemic point to a growing frustration in the "peripheral areas" of our country. Long ignored by the ruling elites these unfortunate people have been rolling with the blows for too long and are fed-up with the pathetic responses from those who are meant to represent them. This is a healthy sign. People need to realise they are the ones who have the power to effect change - if they don't like how a particular councillor or Party is managing their area, they must vote him or them out. This is democracy in action.

Unfortunately from what I have seen so far, the electorate in this country does not respond in the way it should when faced with political inefficiency or corruption. Too often the reaction we see is a shrug of the shoulders and a kind of "well that kind of stuff is to be expected, they're politicians after all", or people just withdraw completely from the system and never participate in the political process . To me this is a major reason for the rapidly declining participation in national and (especially) local elections.

On a lighter note I see this blogs "favorite" politician after Jay-Z experienced some troubling moments :

Even suave youth league leader Mbalula struggled to keep control over the noisy crowd, who grabbed the microphone to vent their concerns. “I am not your enemy,” he shouted. Mbalula promised to take their demands to President Thabo Mbeki. He told them that clean water was not a privilege but a right. “Typhoid is killing the poorest of the poor while people staying in nice places drink Valpré.”

 

Does the ANC Youth League hypocrisy know absolutely no bounds? If anyone is going to be drinking Valpré it would probably be you Fikile - checkout the "Lifestyle" link of the ANCYL website.