EDITOR – South Africa has one of the best constitutions in the world yet the very basis of our constitutional democracy is under severe threat.
The shenanigans in parliament recently are just the tip of the iceberg and if one looks closer to home we see an even more disturbing trend. Our civic action group is non-party political because we have seen that more and more people, including ourselves, are fed up with party politics and politicians.
Visit an eThekwini Council meeting and you will see what we mean. In our book democracy is about elected officials all putting the citizens first in all their decisions regardless of how the respective citizens may have cast their vote.
Yet at every council meeting, any proposal put forward by the opposition, and in particular the DA is voted down out of hand. Not on the merits of the proposal but purely because of whence it comes. Even, a proposal to stop councillors making comments that fly in the face of our constitution is voted against. That is not democracy. Democracy is not a “winner take all” style of dictatorship.
If we needed further proof of the death of our democracy, then the recent ANC eThekwini conference held over the weekend (the fourth in the past few months) is a case in point. It was the third conference postponed and even the one that did take place has had the elections declared null and void. Why is this? Because the ANC members are not the least bit interested in democracy. One faction stops the other from entering the gate, and then the other drowns out the proceedings causing the conference to be abandoned. Mob rule at it’s best.
What about the two candidates for leader of eThekwini? Mayor James Nxumalo and eThekwini executive member, Zandile Gumede, are strangely silent and seem to have no opinion on the un-democratic behaviour of their supporters. Do either show leadership and address their supporters and call them into to line? No!
This is the present leadership of a once proud and disciplined party. Nelson Mandela, Chris Hani, Govan Mbeki, Oliver Tambo and Albert Luthuli must be turning in their graves.
To add insult to injury we have communities complaining of a lack of policing and response time in the war against crime yet the traffic island outside the conference was lined with police vehicles. As with the attempt by the Speaker of the eThekwini Council to close a meeting to the public recently, because of a security threat, when in both cases the only security threat was between ANC factions that cause us, the citizens, to be relegated down the line in respect of essential service delivery.
Kevin Dunkley
Cheryl Johnson
Save Our Berea
