The SA Politics Thread Part 3

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6spdmanual said:
Apologies, I wasn't clear.

Corruption in democratic SA has been around since the early days. I am not disputing that. What I am saying is that even in that first presidency of Mandela, the previously mentioned chaps (and others) were already doing their thing. What I am saying is that if I personally had to put one name on who the "catalyst" is, i.e., pushed for it, enabled eat, and participated in it, it is Jacob Zuma.
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Ok, there we can agree.
 
cr@zydude said:
We have electoral thresholds already. The National Assembly has 400 seats, it thus takes about 0.25% of the vote to get a seat.
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That's the problem. There aren't really thresholds, that "threshold" you speak of fluctuates from election to election.

Al Jama-ah qualified for a seat with 0.18% of the vote in 2019.

A solid threshold should be put in place to prevent this thing of small parties with 0.2% of the vote essentially wagging the tail of the council/legislature (i.e. instability as we've seen in GP).
Do you think it's fair and sustainable to allow a party(s) with 0.2% of the vote to do that?

Then there's the problem of cumbersome coalitions like ETH, any party that wants to form a coalition needs a minimum of 10+ parties to form one (unless two of the big parties cooperate), which is unsustainable and unstable.
 
PrimeSteak said:
That's the problem. There aren't really thresholds, that "threshold" you speak of fluctuates from election to election.

Al Jama-ah qualified for a seat with 0.18% of the vote in 2019.

A solid threshold should be put in place to prevent this thing of small parties with 0.2% of the vote essentially wagging the tail of the council/legislature (i.e. instability as we've seen in GP).
Do you think it's fair and sustainable to allow a party(s) with 0.2% of the vote to do that?

Then there's the problem of cumbersome coalitions like ETH, any party that wants to form a coalition needs a minimum of 10+ parties to form one (unless two of the big parties cooperate), which is unsustainable and unstable.
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In the broadest sense, that's how multiparty democracy works. We could use first past the post and massively help the ANC, DA and IFP and regional parties, but that isn't more democratic.

We could switch the 'last seat' threshold to be above 0.25% nationally, but again that helps bigger parties and isn't necessarily better.
 
6spdmanual said:
No politician ever is a saint.

I don't see it the same as you when you say "he is the catalyst for corruption in SA". I personally don't think he is. I think Zuma is the main man for that. He and Tony Yengeni and the likes. Once Mandela stepped down, the hunger to eat went up a few notches, lead by Mr Zuma himself.

EDIT: if a poll was made here on MyBB, I believe most would agree with my statement. Yes, the ANC as a whole is complicit, but Zuma is the main guy in my view.
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My apologies. That does not sound like I intended it to be. Let me put it like this. Not everybody in the ANC was onboard with the methods of "fundraising". But over time they began to say "well, if the Old Man says it's okay...". So not the catalyst for corruption in SA (wrong choice of words) but within the ANC, yes. Zuma took it from corruption to outright plunder. I called it back in 2009.
 
JuliusSeizure said:
Your assessments of De Klerk and Mbeki are a bit too positive.

Mbeki was good with economics but ultimately is viewed negatively because he lacked knowledge of the Aids crisis. Had he based his policy with guidance from health professionals, he may have been viewed more positively than Mandela.
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I wish for the days when AIDS was our major crisis. These days it's probably something like 39th on the list...
 
PrimeSteak said:
That's the problem. There aren't really thresholds, that "threshold" you speak of fluctuates from election to election.

Al Jama-ah qualified for a seat with 0.18% of the vote in 2019.

A solid threshold should be put in place to prevent this thing of small parties with 0.2% of the vote essentially wagging the tail of the council/legislature (i.e. instability as we've seen in GP).
Do you think it's fair and sustainable to allow a party(s) with 0.2% of the vote to do that?

Then there's the problem of cumbersome coalitions like ETH, any party that wants to form a coalition needs a minimum of 10+ parties to form one (unless two of the big parties cooperate), which is unsustainable and unstable.
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You are missing the point, the 0.2% party is able to wag the tail of the council because parties who have enough seats do not want to work together, and whose fault is it? We have a bunch of children in councils who are unable to see beyond their pride and eliminate the 0.2% party.

Now you hear people moaning that COPE only has 0.2% or whatever, therefore they don't have the mandate to lead the city, using that same logic it means the parties who have the mandate is the ANC and the DA, but they can't work together so the 0.2% guy is able to take control.

You can try to legislate that away, we will start with 0.2% party but that is not going to solve the problem, the 2% party will just take over, then you legislate the 2% party away, the 5% one will take over and so it goes, when does it become anti democratic?

What is needed at local government is simple, some little bit of maturity, nothing else.
 
cr@zydude said:
We have electoral thresholds already. The National Assembly has 400 seats, it thus takes about 0.25% of the vote to get a seat. While local government has first past the post voting for ward councillors, at large seats still have mathematical thresholds.
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The threshold in Germany is 5%. I think that should be implemented here. 0.25% is way too small.
 
ghaye said:
Are you very sure about that? I think if you dig a bit deeper you may find that he was a-okay with "rewarding" that sacrificed so much. As long as the ANC also benefited. So in my view he is the catalyst for corruption in SA. He's unfortunately not quite the saint that so many millions would love him to be.
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Governments will always be corrupt. The NP was corrupt and so was the ANC onder Mandela. The main thing is they still pretended that they weren't.

The big change came with Zuma where corruption was openly flaunted and encouraged.

It is all a question of how much waste a society can tolerate, all Governments are a waste.
 
cr@zydude said:
In the broadest sense, that's how multiparty democracy works. We could use first past the post and massively help the ANC, DA and IFP and regional parties, but that isn't more democratic.
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I'm not saying we should go for a sole FP (first past post) system. The old regime showed the downsides of FP, and the democratic era showed us the downsides of PR. What I suggest then is a mix of the two...

Other democracies that are considered "strong democracies" like Germany, Denmark, and South Korea, etc have these thresholds in place. For the exact reasons, why we have such coalition chaos now.
cr@zydude said:
We could switch the 'last seat' threshold to be above 0.25% nationally, but again that helps bigger parties and isn't necessarily better.
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I disagree. An electoral threshold between 1% and 2% (like the Danes) seems good.

Implementing such a threshold, will:
  1. Ensure all parties elected to legislature/council have actually tangible and sizable constituencies
  2. Lockout these mini one-man band parties that get a single seat and then collapse after 2 years
  3. Minimize the number of parties elected, and of course, the sizes of coalitions and of course make them more stable.
  4. Encourage one-man band people to rather run as independents and not create another party that'll split the vote even more (I think we have around 300+ registered parties in SA)
 
cr@zydude said:
That ignores Germany's constituency voting.
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They use a mix of PR and constituency. The threshold is for PR ballots.

To qualify for seats based on the party-list vote share, a party must either win three single-member constituencies via first votes (basic mandate clause) or exceed a threshold of 5% of the second votes nationwide.
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Almost like how it works with our LGEs.
en.wikipedia.org

Bundestag - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org
 
PrimeSteak said:
But what happens now tho?
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Read more
BREAKING | ConCourt won’t hear Ramaphosa's Phala Phala challenge as his direct access bid fails

The Constitutional Court has unanimously dismissed President Cyril Ramaphosa’s efforts to seek direct access to overturn an independent panel’s findings that he may have violated the Constitution and committed money-laundering in connection with the ongoing Phala Phala saga.

The apex court’s ruling means the president will have to turn to the High Court if he wishes to challenge the report, which has been the basis of attacks on his leadership.

The court did not make findings on the merits of the Ramaphosa's case.

- Karyn Maughan
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You could also start practicing saying President Mashatile.
 
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