The writing is on the wall for South Africa. Both the official South African observer team and our rulers believe the Zimbabwe election was either free and fair, or at least acceptable. This declaration makes it clear that they believe in an African form of democracy where large-scale attacks on opposition members, including torture, arson, and murder, openly aided and abetted by the government, are acceptable.
They accept suppression of press freedom, subversion of the justice system, including threats to judges, attacks on courts and the appointment of a politically aligned judiciary, an openly politicised army and a police force that will come to your aid only if you are a member of the ruling party, and will arrest you if you resist assault by ruling-party supporters. They accept an election supervised by the military and ruling party members instead of an independent electoral commission, where the voters’ roll is manipulated, opposition voters are disenfranchised by a variety of mechanisms, various court orders relating to the process are ignored by the government and the role of independent observers from civil society is severely restricted so that vote rigging is possible in many areas. And they accept support for all of this by a disinformation-and-dirty-tricks campaign, with broken promises and lies by the government.
All this is acceptable in Zimbabwe. The implication is absolutely clear; for those taking this view, all this would be acceptable in South Africa too. But they are the ruling party; so as sure as eggs is eggs, this is eventually going to take place in this country too. The only question is when. The answer is when a credible mass opposition to the African National Congress arises from the ranks of a disillusioned populace at large and threatens the continued hold on power of the ruling government, just as in Zimbabwe.
The only thing that could prevent this kind of response is the rise of a strong pro-democracy faction in the ANC; and the recent parliamentary vote and Cabinet statement, with the pro-Mugabe stance of the president’s office and the president’s acceptance of the South African observer mission’s report, shows there is no such faction at present.
There are dark days ahead for this country. Ask not for whom the bell tolls: it tolls for us all. George Ellis, Kenilworth
When I was a student in the United States in the 1970s one of our professors told us the following story.
During the Watergate crisis the special prosecutor appointed to investigate Nixon’s role requested access to the tape recordings of the White House. Nixon refused (pleading “executive privilege”) and the Supreme Court had to rule on the matter.
With the world anxiously awaiting the judgement, the professor decided to test his students’ “political acumen”. What would happen if the Supreme Court ruled against the US president, the most influential political leader in the world?”
Some Iranian students in the class all predicted (as if explaining their own Shah) that in such an eventuality the president would suspend the Constitution, declare a state of emergency, call out the security forces and rule by decree.
The outcome is history. Nixon left the White House in disgrace and his successor’s pardon had to save him from prison.
What this story tells us about legitimacy and the reasons a democratic constitutional order is respected, is of more significance. His fate would have been the same had Nixon tried to rig a general election like Robert Mugabe.
A stable and legitimate democratic order is the outcome of time and of many historical, cultural, economic, educational and realpolitikal factors. The cost involved in tearing up the contract with the people (the Constitution) is what ultimately restrains the natural inclinations of many a despot. And that is part of the tragedy about Zimbabwe; another building block in the construction of that democracy has been shattered with impunity. Hopefully the building process will start again. Gerhard Erasmus, Stellenbosch
I refer to the letter (March 22) by Mosakare Oarabile Rops of Port Elizabeth in which he asks: “Anyway, who gives a shit about Zimbabweans?” Man! What world are you living in? Dreamland? If you did not give a shit about Zimbabweans you would not have written your stupid letter in the first place, which took valuable space from people who have something better to say.
I suggest someone sensible pour ice-cold water on your hypocrite self to bring you back to reality! Brighton Imbayarwo, Cape Town
It is with great sorrow that I have watched the decline of the ANC from a party with integrity and passion to one that is self-serving and devoid of compassion for its electorate.
I am at a loss to determine why mothers and children are not given the choice of avoiding the transmission of the HI virus, why raped women are not given the choice of AZT and now why hospital staff are no longer to be protected with anti-retroviral drugs after needle-stick accidents.
In addition, the employment of the majority of the population is also bottom of the agenda as interest rates rise and productivity slumps.
After September 11, the US reduced interest rates to protect jobs there and its economy. Here, we raise rates, complicate tax returns, increase barriers to entry for small and medium enterprises, foul up the skills development infrastructure so that no-one knows how to register as a trainer or have their material approved and consequently cannot tell companies that they can reclaim their levies! No wonder no levies have been reclaimed!
Is the government so determined to be right that it is prepared to sacrifice women and babies by denying them assistance in avoiding HIV and Aids, sacrifice jobs to the growth, employment and reconstruction policy and other mechanisms and sacrifice all to crime?
Please could we declare our politicians certifiable, pack them off to Sterkfontein and start again? We should use Madiba and Archbishop Desmond Tutu to set up workable parameters for the way forward and perhaps then we will sort out the Zimbabwe situation. Judith Taylor
It was a revelation to hear the Congress of South African Trade Unions’ Zwelinzima Vavi being interviewed on SAfm on Monday morning: a pathetic, mumbling shadow of his former self, he admitted that, despite having had 13 of their own people in the South African observer mission during the Zimbabwe elections, they wouldn’t make their findings public until after they had synchronised (or words to that effect) with the rest of the team.
This after having displayed a modicum of independent thought when speaking up in favour of their beleaguered Movement for Democratic Change unionist colleagues.
It is very clear that even Cosatu are now the lapdogs of their ANC masters, leaving one to the sad conclusion that, when the going gets tough, Africans tend to roll over and play dead; and as long as this “follow-your-leader” mindset prevails Africa will never come up in life. Nepad, shmepad. Elle Wieghorst, Durban
One of the chief reasons for President Mbeki’s “inexplicable” support of President Robert Mugabe has received almost no comment. It is the political impossibility of siding with the Zimbabwean president’s rival, Morgan Tsvangirai.
From an ANC view, the speed with which Tsvangirai has built a government in waiting is alarming. As is the overt challenge to the political dispensation of the name “Movement for Democratic Change” a cause unlikely to bring any sitting of the ANC enthusiastically to its feet.
But it is the wider, moral lessons here that so subvert ANC hegemony. The MDC fearlessly nails home that “struggle credentials” are no guarantee a government will not abuse power. Its language is non-threatening and inclusive. Tsvangirai has no brief or need for the old “us” and “them” divisions of liberation rhetoric. He can deride self-serving calls to renew the fight against white “supremacists” and the “neo-colonial menace”, harmonising with other enlightened voices speaking out for the new realities and hopes of the post Cold War world. A party originating in the trade union movement has thus attracted formidably broad support as events have unfolded.
The ANC hears a distant knell in this. Hence their reluctance to condemn Mugabe’s abuses, lest they confirm that Africanist parties no longer have a monopoly in the fight for human rights. Hence their promotion of a “compromise” government of national unity in Zimbabwe, any form of which must swallow Tsvangirai up and return political opposition there to the token status it has in South Africa. Paul Whelan, Umhlanga