interesting take on SA developments etc..

South Africa's One-Party Rule
By MATTHEW KAMINSKI
September 27, 2007; Page A16

Cape Town

Post-apartheid South Africa is a democracy with an asterisk. Only one party -- the African National Congress -- wins elections. The ANC controls the presidency, parliament, all nine provinces and large municipalities.


Then there is Cape Town. This port city of 3.2 million is a rare laboratory in Africa of multiparty democracy at work. In the 18 months since the Democratic Alliance won City Hall, the local ANC bosses have tried, by hook or by crook, to unseat the country's only prominent non-ANC mayor, Helen Zille. Without luck, so far. In May, Ms. Zille also became leader of her party.

The local power struggle takes place against the backdrop of the most politically critical time for South Africa since 1994. At its national conference in December, the ruling ANC picks a new leader and probable successor to President Thabo Mbeki, who must leave office in 2009. No obvious heir apparent has emerged. An even bigger uncertainty: the next president's commitment to multiparty, multiracial democracy. Africa is littered with former liberation movements that succumbed to racial scapegoating and authoritarianism. Just cross over the border into Robert Mugabe's Zimbabwe.

The story from Cape Town is sobering. In the spring of 2006, the Democratic Alliance won 42% of the vote in municipal elections against the ANC's 38%, and formed a coalition with two smaller parties. The ANC were sore losers. At a rally in a poor black neighborhood, party activists hurled chairs at Ms. Zille, who is white, forcing her to flee. In a speech soon after the poll, the party's provincial chairman, James Ngculu, said: "We in the ANC strenuously reject any calls that we should allow the Democratic Alliance to rule." [Emphasis mine.] Several months later, the provincial government tried by fiat to strip the mayor of executive powers.

By Ms. Zille's count, the ANC has sought to remove her on seven occasions. Add to that list the recent attempt to get the party and its coalition supporters in the municipal council to "cross over" to the ANC and take away her majority, offering, Ms. Zille tells me, bribes of 50,000 rand, or $7,100, each. Also this month, police in a poor part of Cape Town arrested her for marching in a rally against the local drug lords. Ms. Zille accused the regional government of "us[ing] state resources to settle political battles" and trying to prevent her party from making inroads with black voters.

Ms. Zille credits President Mbeki for intervening on her behalf at critical moments last year. It's important, she says, "that an element in the ANC recognizes they must learn to lose elections." After her arrest this month the ANC's national secretary general, Kgalema Motlanthe, criticized the police for failing to treat Ms. Zille with the "dignity that her office calls for."

As a journalist, Ms. Zille helped expose anti-apartheid activist Steve Biko's 1977 murder in police custody. She later was active in Cape Town anti-apartheid politics. Now 56, Ms. Zille follows in the footsteps of another Helen who espoused liberalism -- Helen Suzman, who for years was sole member of the old South African parliament opposed to apartheid. As in those days, Ms. Zille says that "people are still judged by the color of their skin not the content of their character." The ANC uses "nationalism and racial mobilization" to hold on to power, keeping the country riven along sectarian lines in the way apartheid rulers did. "It's just as easy and tempting for the new power elite to use race just as the old one did," she says.

"The big issue here is are we going to descend into the closed patronage society in which your chances in life are going to be determined by your race and your closeness to people in power, or are your chances in life going to be determined by your commitment, your ability, your work ethic," says Ms. Zille. "If we go the wrong way, we'll end up like Zimbabwe. If we go the right way we'll end up closer to the United States." The outcome is sure to reverberate across Africa.

For years now, the Democratic Alliance has attacked the ANC's corruption, as well as its shortcomings on crime, AIDS and health and education -- all issues of great concern to the black majority. (The Mbeki government, mostly Marxists who've reconciled with business, surprised by managing the economy well.) But the Alliance wins the bulk of its support from white, including former pro-apartheid, and mixed-race voters; it has barely dented the ANC's near-total hold on the black electorate. "They say things that need to be said, but because it comes from [a white-dominated party] it is dismissed," says Barney Mthombothi, editor of the Financial Mail weekly.

Will the Democratic Alliance, the country's second biggest party, ever win nationally? "Not in my lifetime," Ms. Zille says. "It's a total miracle that I'm a mayor quite frankly. We didn't think we had a hope in hell in the last election." If the ANC splits, on the other hand, the Democratic Alliance might yet join forces with its liberally inclined moderates who'll be willing to cross racial lines, she muses, and put in place the foundation of a true multi-party system. Perhaps then the "rainbow nation" will deserve the name.

Free Article - WSJ.com

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Obama-e fungis nati homines....

I believe the last paragraph holds much truth. The quickest way for South Africa to become a healthy democracy is if the ANC would split into two or more parties.

The unfortunate truth is probably that the ANC uses race to win votes and elections. This is not better when executed by people of a racial majority than it is when executed by those of a racial minority.

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President Josiah Bartlet: Sweden has a 100% literacy rate. 100%! How do they do that?
Leo McGarry: Maybe they don't and they can't add.

ANC is not making many confidence-inspiring moves on the democratic front.

Suffice it to say that 'democracy' has never been a core ANC value and isn't one now.

Hopefully, it will be in the near future. But make no mistake, there's nothing democratic about the ANC other than the fact that they got elected.

"...Suffice it to say that 'democracy' has never been a core USA value and isn't one now"
How sharp. Thank you.

What relevance does your statement have on South Africa and the ANC?

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President Josiah Bartlet: Sweden has a 100% literacy rate. 100%! How do they do that?
Leo McGarry: Maybe they don't and they can't add.

My previous post was a laughter, mokery, the best I could do...
You, talking healthy democracy, you tell me, what the heck did you mean typing these?

A healthy democracy is a democracy where all political parties respect each other, where there is no bribery and no threatening, where there is freedom of speech and rule of law, and where the political opposition stand a fair chance of winning any election.

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President Josiah Bartlet: Sweden has a 100% literacy rate. 100%! How do they do that?
Leo McGarry: Maybe they don't and they can't add.

DGG? I'd vote your my next bloke. Where are you from and how old are you, berofe I commit?

DGG, " where all political parties respect each other.."? What is this? Unheard! Are you from Sweden or something? Welcome to real world, my nothern friend.

And it was lame.

And it draws my ire. That's a bad combination.

No. You explain why you are trolling my words.

I suspect that number at the end of your username is your age, which, if true, would likely have me walk away as I'm not going to waste my time arguing anything with a kid.

Btw, if you think my words are sharp, then consider whether you wish to be the object of them.