The Democratic Alliance’s trumpeting of the defection of Solly Kotane to its ranks and the African National Congress’s exhibitionism over former newspaper spy Craig Kotze symbolise the rank opportunism that has characterised our local government elections.
Just when we thought that no one could go lower, the DA delighted at the questionable granting of amnesty to 13 murderers in the Boipatong massacre and issued an insensitive statement claiming that this vindicated former president FW de Klerk.
The District Six community’s victory at the end of a painful struggle to get their land back was hijacked into an ANC election rally, providing further use for the sick pail. And the sight of the Pan Africanist Congress grandstanding and inflaming racial passions outside the trial of the six North Rand cops who brutalised illegal immigrants with their dogs was possibly the lowest point of all.
Our politicians really think we are stupid.
The only cause for cheer is that the political season is almost over. Before then, though, we have to discharge our civic duty and vote.
In recent weeks, pundits have been debating in this newspaper whether, given the options, it is worth voting at all. Disillusionment with the system and the parties leading to voter apathy threatens to undermine our hard-won freedoms.
There is no question that we have to vote. The candidates are not always ideal, but this is the price of democracy. If the best that a nation of 250-million like the United States can come up with is Al Gore and George W Bush, then the voters of Rondebosch, Alexandra and Pofadder are not doing too badly.
Clearly, the local government electoral system, allowing people to vote for candidates of choice no matter their party, has widened the choices. We urge voters to size up their candidates and support those with integrity, no matter which party they represent. This is an opportunity to remove the self-servers and blowhards from office, to take out those who make promises but are not seen until the next election.
Voters have to scrutinise the track records of candidates to ensure that our public representatives subscribe to the highest values and that we can trust them to build our democracy.
The second, proportional representation vote should be cast for the party that has delivered or is capable of delivering to one’s own community. It is an easy enough test because the relationship is so direct and measurable. Local government is about services and benefits, about street lights and garbage collections, to the public.
And even if we’ve had enough of opportunism, we have much to be thankful for in these elections. There have been relatively low levels of violence and most political parties have understood the sense of contesting all areas, not just those within their own racial ghettoes and strongholds.
And if at the end of the day some people say that is boring, then so be it, because that in itself is a massive sign of progress.
Replace Heath with Welz The Constitutional Court ruling this week which neuters the new South Africa’s most famous corruption buster, the Heath investigative unit, will have serious ramifications for many months to come.
The obvious question is why the state law advisers who signed off the legislation governing the Heath unit got it so wrong and exposed the unit to such a humiliating judgement. It of course took a group of wealthy lawyers to get the Constitutional Court to take on Heath and prove that the legislation underpinning one of South Africa’s most important institutions was fundamentally flawed.
The unit has been given roughly a year to wind up current investigations, after which it has to amend its appointment procedures. That means the unit’s head, Judge Willem Heath, will either resign from his position on the Bench to remain with the unit or return to the Eastern Cape courts.
As a public relations exercise, the unit has been a phenomenal success it is perceived, both at home and abroad, as the most effective anti-corruption unit in the country.
The obvious question is who will take over the baton from Heath. The original legislation, now found to be inconsistent with the constitutional principle of separation of powers, stipulated that only a judge should head the unit. There is concern in legal circles that whoever succeeds Heath may lack the stature and clout that the position of a judge affords. The Constitutional Court judgement itself acknowledges the necessity of having “a person of integrity” head the unit.
Another issue alluded to in the judgement is ironing out the criteria for what may or may not be a “proper” non-judicial assignment for judges. In most modern democracies, including South Africa, judges are involved in a variety of activities not directly related to judicial office, such as commissions of inquiry, and, in the case of Judge Johan Kriegler, the Independent Electoral Commission.
Aside from matters of constitutionality and technical legal points, there remains the very ugly question of how to deal with South Africa’s errant accident lawyers. The flaccid law societies have proven themselves ineffective in combating the scourge of unscrupulous lawyers who are pocketing excessive portions of their clients’ compensation. With Heath out of the picture, it remains to be seen who will flex their muscle to root out what boils down to criminal behaviour by an uncomfortably large number of road accident lawyers. For now, all the public can do is go to the press. It was, after all, Martin Welz’s Noseweek that spotlighted unscrupulous road accident lawyers in the first place. Which leads us to conclude that the most suitable replacement for Heath is the feisty Welz himself.