True Democracy - Interesting Article

[Ronjay]

agreed...

gvt must provide free education to everyone up to matric

if you failed matric or before, you CANNOT vote.

then it is true democracy, which without fear to be ruled by idiots .....

BS. Matric doesn't necessarily mean common sense. There are doctors and University professors and even university students (therefor obviously matriculants) that voted ANC despite the last 20 years of failure and corruption and the rest. Not very bright are they.

 

[Ronjay]

you mean "most of the idiots"?

I don't think most of educated people will vote for ANC. (no matter what race is)

only a very few of people are benefited from ANC will vote for them if you are educated.

read the results of voting station, see which areas are ANC “strong hole” you will understand better.

Of course they do. An education doesn't mean common sense.

 

[grayston]

BS. Matric doesn't necessarily mean common sense. There are doctors and University professors and even university students (therefor obviously matriculants) that voted ANC despite the last 20 years of failure and corruption and the rest. Not very bright are they.

You have a point. But, uh, the main idea behind saying "get matric before you can vote" is to, uh, get people to go to school. And also to shout very loudly when the shoddy schools the ANC gives them only allow them to pass matric at the age of 25.

 

[Smooth Criminal]

All I'm saying is that even idiots can pass metric in SA

That's very evident from your post.

 

[JungleBoy]

At least Congressmen, unlike our MPs, are directly elected by their constituents and, as a result, directly responsible for pushing their agenda in Congress (or Parliament). Here, the party provides a list MPs and forces all MPs to vote along party lines. This is unacceptable since they should be representing the needs of the people not the needs of a small band of individuals in the ANC NEC.

They use secret ballots in parliament. How would they force MP's to vote along party lines ?


BTW, do the DA MPs also get forced to vote along the party lines or is it an ANC thing?

 

[WilD_CaT]

No, we live in a consitutional republic. The only thing democratic about it is that the government (representatives) is democratically elected by the people. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitutional_republic

The only country that comes remotely close to a pure democracy is Switzerland. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_democracy

In a republic form of government each area elects a representative. These representatives then elect a chariman or president who simply precides over the vote. I guess he gets an extra vote in the event votes in the assembly are tied.

Actually the easiest way to explain this would be to watch the Star Wars movies. The have a Republic form of government of the universe. Each planet has representatives to represent their interests. The chairman is elected by the representatives not the people, such as when Palpatine took over. He was elected by the other representatives.

South Africa is not a constitutional republic. It is a constitutional democracy.

Think of old Rome and the senate. The senators represented different constituancies and elected a chairman. Obviously this was abused and people killed to be king or Ceasar but no matter.

The point is we are not a Republic.

 

[Ronjay]

You have a point. But, uh, the main idea behind saying "get matric before you can vote" is to, uh, get people to go to school. And also to shout very loudly when the shoddy schools the ANC gives them only allow them to pass matric at the age of 25.

Yes, but that is not going to happen here. I believe that the ANC could pretty much do as they like and the idiots, matric or not, would still vote for them. This is evident by the twit we call the President now. You can't tell me that there are not more educated people out there since 1994. As I said it boils down to common sense, just because you have it and have an education, and can see clearly that the ANC are pathetic, does not mean that others have it, and can see it.

 

[grayston]

Yes, but that is not going to happen here

Yeah yeah yeah. How about a bit less of the "that will never happen!!!!" and a bit more of the "how could we make this happen?"

 

[BBSA]

you mean "most of the idiots"?

I don't think most of educated people will vote for ANC. (no matter what race is)

only a very few of people are benefited from ANC will vote for them if you are educated.

read the results of voting station, see which areas are ANC “strong hole” you will understand better.

I agree, but do you think somebody with a South African matric certificate is educated?

 

[Ronjay]

Yeah yeah yeah. How about a bit less of the "that will never happen!!!!" and a bit more of the "how could we make this happen?"

Well that is tough to do. The ANC get majority vote because the majority of South Africans can't see an alternative. The DA will never come to power because they are seen by the masses to cater for "white" interests. Many of the other parties are seen to cater for interests of minorities too, be it staunch Christians, to Afrikaners. So in order to oust the ANC, a party is going to have to beat them on political grounds, not just educating more people. A party will have a hard time breaking through the barrier though.

 

[zippy]

Again MPs should be directly elected by their constituents and the party should have no recourse to recall a member should they vote against the party.

I agree about the MP's being elected directly.

There should also be the option of a recall referendum like they have in California(EDIT: Think its for the governor only). I think any local with x number of signatures can petition the court to order a recall referendum. Should the MP be convicted of a criminal offence, then the recall referendum should be automatic. Hopefully this option is going to be implemented in the UK soon.

 

[Gawain]

South Africa is a constitutional democracy with a three-tier system of government and an independent judiciary.

seems we where all wrong

South Africa is a constitutional democracy with a three-tier system of government and an independent judiciary. The national, provincial and local levels of government all have legislative and executive authority in their own spheres, and are defined in the Constitution as "distinctive, interdependent and interrelated".

Operating at both national and provincial levels are advisory bodies drawn from South Africa's traditional leaders.

It is a stated intention in the Constitution that the country be run on a system of co-operative governance.

http://www.southafrica.info/about/government/gov.htm

What is a constitutional democracy?

well according to wikipedia - link

Liberal democracy (or constitutional democracy) is the dominant form of democracy in the 21st century. During the Cold War, liberal democracies were contrasted with the Communist People's Republics or "Popular Democracies", which claimed an alternative conception of democracy. Today, constitutional democracies are mostly contrasted with direct democracy and/or participatory democracy. Liberal democracies may take various constitutional forms: they may be republics, as the United States, India or France, or constitutional monarchy, as the United Kingdom or Spain. It may have a presidential system (United States), a parliamentary system (Westminster system, UK and Commonwealth countries), or a hybrid, semi-presidential system (France).

The term "liberal" in "liberal democracy" refers to adherence to the ideology of political liberalism.[1] Liberal democracies feature constitutional protections of individual rights from government power,[2] which were first proposed during the Age of Enlightenment by social contract theorists such as Hobbes and Locke. At present, there are numerous countries ruled by non-liberal political parties - parties that uphold conservatism, Christian democracy, social democracy, or some forms of socialism - that are considered to have liberal democracy as their form of government.[3]

 

[3G4me]

Except our three tier democracy no longer has an independant judiciary. We have a well known and proven "Zumabot" as head of the NPA. When the president can pick those positions then it cannot be considered independant. Zuma's corruption case is proof of this.

 

[PeterCH]

Completely democratic. That's the problem.

Instead of "the people" ruling, "the people capable of ruling" should rule.

You can prove your capability by turning over your matric certificate (or equivalent) when you register to vote. No brains, no say.

Which in this case would be the Central Committee of the ANC. Wow talk about support for fascism.

Everyone has the vote and we have a constitution to respect the rights of the minorities.

 

[Gawain]

Except our three tier democracy no longer has an independant judiciary. We have a well known and proven "Zumabot" as head of the NPA. When the president can pick those positions then it cannot be considered independant. Zuma's corruption case is proof of this.

lol so we have some kind of unknown government system -- anybody to go edit the wiki entry

 

[3G4me]

lol so we have some kind of unknown government system -- anybody to go edit the wiki entry

It's called the early stages of African Rule syndrome, as seen in the rest of Africa.

 

[DreamKing]

I agree, but do you think somebody with a South African matric certificate is educated?

true...

so the key factor is "government should provide quality education" .....

the education should included "common sense" (I don't know what I am talking about, why I have to mention about "it must include common sense", but it is for some idiots who think "education" did not include common sense.....)

if anyone after 12 years free quality education (included common sense) is still to vote for idiots, I don't think it is a problem.
(The bottom line is "do the voters know what they are voting for and why", it is not "fool by politicians" - giving some FREE t-shirt etc to win the vote )

The education is very important for democracy.......... the voters' quality is directly influence of the "quality of government".....

"what kind of voters" you have then you will have "what kind of government" ......... it is always true.

 

[Arko2]

How about changing the whole System, seeing that computers are allover, to get candidates selected as true leaders by a computer system. Than every body votes by computer and also has to
qualify to enable him to vote.? That would be a really fair election, maybe except for Hackers. It could provide the perfect Gouverment serving the people

 

[Gawain]

How about changing the whole System, seeing that computers are allover, to get candidates selected as true leaders by a computer system. Than every body votes by computer and also has to
qualify to enable him to vote.? That would be a really fair election, maybe except for Hackers. It could provide the perfect Gouverment serving the people

http://www.reportvotefraud.org/ - computer voting fraud in usa

the voting isnt the issue... but is the government following the model that it calls itself, and if not what would be a more effective system to benefit all the population - sorry busy so i cannot expand on my post

 

[grayston]

Well that is tough to do.

Yes, and?

The ANC get majority vote because the majority of South Africans can't see an alternative. The DA will never come to power because they are seen by the masses to cater for "white" interests. Many of the other parties are seen to cater for interests of minorities too, be it staunch Christians, to Afrikaners. So in order to oust the ANC, a party is going to have to beat them on political grounds, not just educating more people. A party will have a hard time breaking through the barrier though.

The ANC is winning on political grounds, because it plays pure politics. It wins not because it delivers anything, but because it successfully smears all its opposition. You can see how it happens, too. A political campaign which essentially says: "Don't vote for her because she's ugly!" is only going to hold water if your constituents have the intellectual facilities of a six-year-old.

Do you think the ANC wants to give that up? Of course not. That would mean they would actually have to do some work. Much easier to tell the voters that they mustn't vote for dogs and cockroaches and white women.

So the real question is: how do we improve the educational system of the country when the country's leaders have a vested interest in keeping the population uneducated?