The SA Politics Thread Part 3

Status
Not open for further replies.
PrimeSteak said:
Yet hilariously enough, some of the most democratic and liberal countries in the world use thresholds too.
Click to expand...
Examples:

Germany
Denmark
Netherlands
Scotland/Wales
New Zealand
South Korea

Electoral threshold - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org

The only country that has a similar threshold to our proposed one is Uruguay. Everyone else is 2% and up. Like I said, 1% is the bare minimum here.
 
cr@zydude said:
China is an extreme example, but raising the threshold is anti-democratic. If there are 400 seats, it should take about 0.25% of the vote to get a seat. What is correct about 1% and wrong about 50%?
Click to expand...
But perhaps read the "cogent" arguments about why there are electoral thresholds in developed countries which score high on various measures related to democracy.
 
PrimeSteak said:
Examples:

Germany
Denmark
Netherlands
Scotland/Wales
New Zealand
South Korea

Electoral threshold - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org

The only country that has a similar threshold to our proposed one is Uruguay. Everyone else is 2% and up. Like I said, 1% is the bare minimum here.
Click to expand...

Those countries aren't good democracies because of the thresholds, they are good democracies despite the thresholds.

If one wants a party to win more than 1 seat's worth of votes to get into the city council, why should a ward councillor get a seat when potentially winning even fewer votes?
 
cr@zydude said:
Those countries aren't good democracies because of the thresholds, they are good democracies despite the thresholds.

If one wants a party to win more than 1 seat's worth of votes to get into the city council, why should a ward councillor get a seat when potentially winning even fewer votes?
Click to expand...

SK actually isint a democracy. Its a puppet state of Murica. Murica would not tolerate SK and China becoming friends for instance as much as they claim to be advocates of "freedom". SK military is allowed to develop as far as Murica allows.
 
JuliusSeizure said:
SK actually isint a democracy. Its a puppet state of Murica. Murica would not tolerate SK and China becoming friends for instance as much as they claim to be advocates of "freedom". SK military is allowed to develop as far as Murica allows.
Click to expand...
Another hilarious joke from you.

****ing SK democratically elects its leaders (they even directly elect their president btw)... They have a separation of powers like we do...
freedomhouse.org

South Korea: Freedom in the World 2023 Country Report | Freedom House

See the Freedom in the World 2023 score and learn about democracy and freedom in South Korea.
freedomhouse.org freedomhouse.org

It scored 33/40 in Political rights.

"SK iSN'T DeMoCrAtiC, EvEryOnE ApPoiNtED By EViL WeSt"
Btw we have the same score for political rights AND SK scores higher than we do regarding civil liberties...
freedomhouse.org

South Africa: Freedom in the World 2023 Country Report | Freedom House

See the Freedom in the World 2023 score and learn about democracy and freedom in South Africa.
freedomhouse.org freedomhouse.org
 
Last edited:
cr@zydude said:
Those countries aren't good democracies because of the thresholds, they are good democracies despite the thresholds.
Click to expand...
Exactly. Their having thresholds doesn't make them completely anti-democratic/autocratic or disqualify them from being good democracies, no?
cr@zydude said:
If one wants a party to win more than 1 seat's worth of votes to get into the city council, why should a ward councillor get a seat when potentially winning even fewer votes?
Click to expand...
Because it works differently.

In wards, the wards' inhabitants vote directly for a candidate, not directly for a party, the candidate with the most votes wins and gets the seat, regardless of how many he/she gets.
On council level, you vote for a party, i.e. everyone in the muni votes here. Naturally, if there's an election in a muni like JHB with say a turnout of 45%, you can't justify a party that gets 0.25% to get a seat on a council that represents 5.6 million people. If a party can at least get 1%, then they have a tangible constituency to point to (albeit small).

Your argument makes no sense here. Why can't the ward councillor from a ward with 1,000 people, for example, be elected because a party would need 1% of the total vote from a muni as big as e.g. JHB?

Although, you could probably deploy thresholds on ward elections too... (But I think that idea is stupid)
 
Matshiqi says that Helen Zille could end up being President of the Moonshot and not Steenhuisen. Makes sense after all as she is the actual leader of DA.

 
TheChamp said:
He is a well respected political analyst, he was probably more active before you took interest in politics, but pretty anyone who has been following politics for a while will know him.
Click to expand...
Does he lift his shirt at Mardi Gras for beads when he's not analyzing politics?
 
www.news24.com

Adriaan Basson | One step closer to an ANC-DA grand coalition - and why it's good news | News24

The toenadering between the ANC and DA may have been a major turning point in South Africa's democratic history, writes Adriaan Basson.
www.news24.com www.news24.com
Paywalled, but here's some snippets
A significant political moment took place on the University of the Western Cape campus last week: the governing ANC and the official opposition, the DA, moved closer towards the possibility of a grand coalition in 2024.

This is possibly the single most significant political development of the year so far.
Click to expand...

The actions of rogue political entrepreneurs have forced the ANC and DA, representing about 80% of the South African electorate, to consider cooperation.
Click to expand...
 
TheChamp said:
The way both sides vehemently denied it tells you everything you need to know, they are considering it.
Click to expand...

We'd all have to be stupid to think they aren't considering it.

It could possibly be political suicide for both sides, but at the same time not considering it could also be political suicide for either side.

I would hazard a guess that if the Moonshot doesn't look like it has legs to unseat the ANC, then the DA would consider the ANC as a coalition partner with some very strict conditions (from both sides)
 
ToxicBunny said:
We'd all have to be stupid to think they aren't considering it.

It could possibly be political suicide for both sides, but at the same time not considering it could also be political suicide for either side.

I would hazard a guess that if the Moonshot doesn't look like it has legs to unseat the ANC, then the DA would consider the ANC as a coalition partner with some very strict conditions (from both sides)
Click to expand...
I have said it before, it honestly look to me like the best way forward. I will make an example of my favourite metro Tshwane, the ANC and the DA are already working together to address the water crisis, if they can work together on that they can work together on anything, they don't have to wait for people to die.

Just to show the positives of what could come out of such arrangements, the ANC and DA there have both agreed they are too corrupt to be trusted with managing the projects and have agreed to appoint DBSA as the implementing agent who will have the necessary resources to manage projects of that scale. So they are already guarding each other not to be corrupt.

The two biggest parties in South Africa taking turns to prostitute themselves to the EFF is what looks like political suicide to me, it's scandalous on so many levels. The only thing that's standing in the way is pride and the fact that they need to get a good PR strategy to present this to their respective supporters, besides that it is a no brainer.
 
ToxicBunny said:
It could possibly be political suicide for both sides, but at the same time not considering it could also be political suicide for either side.
Click to expand...
And I'm worried that the DA might get screwed over... But at the same time, if an ill-fated ANC/DA coalition were to work out, it just might coax some ANC voters to walk over to DA...

I don't have a good feeling about a grand coalition...
ToxicBunny said:
I would hazard a guess that if the Moonshot doesn't look like it has legs to unseat the ANC, then the DA would consider the ANC as a coalition partner with some very strict conditions (from both sides)
Click to expand...
Probably as a last resort, yeah...
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top
Sign up to the MyBroadband newsletter
X