South Africa

I know I usually put things like this in the News Swing section but I think Matshikiza's well written piece deserves prominence because it touches on a number of issues I feel very strongly about. For those of you who don't subscribe to the M&G (shame on you!) here's a taste of a well argued Opinion piece that had me nodding in agreement as I read it :

As we hurtle towards municipal elections in South Africa in a matter of weeks, the escalating campaign by various parties, including the ruling African National Congress and the official Democratic Alliance opposition (not to mention that dark horse known as the Freedom Front), to make people sit up and take notice seems to demonstrate a fear that apathy has taken hold of our populace a mere decade after the universal franchise was finally won in the wake of a long and bitter struggle.

No big surprises here. The country’s politicians should have long been aware of the phenomenon in neighbouring countries, such as Zimbabwe, where potential voters in both rural and urban areas openly asked why they should bother to vote after the first national elections in 1980 because the ruling Zanu party was bound to come back into power anyway and nothing much had changed. Things were better under Ian Smith, and his proclaimed “Thousand Years of White Rule” policy the formerly disposessed black poor were heard to grumble.

South Africa’s municipalities, such as they are, appear to be run by faceless individuals, shuffled around by the central committees of the various parties according to their proven loyalty to the leader. Potential leaders with real, individualistic fire are rapidly sidelined.

No, no, this state of apathy should come as no surprise. But, it is not a problem that is confined to South Africa and Zimbabwe. Democratic Centralism, as it used to be known in the good old days of Soviet Communism, has now been openly embraced, with very few exceptions, across what used to be known as the Free World...