As our democracy approaches the intersection of the next election, the lights have already turned orange. Orange, because an alarming number of voters have not felt motivated to register. Orange, because a crisis of leadership in our country has put the brakes on our democratic progress.
It seems the country has not yet woken up to appreciating how fragile democracy is by nature. It took us more than a century to achieve universal franchise for our people; now, within a decade, we are watching it wither. We cannot afford not to use our vote now to redress several of the most disturbing symptoms.
The system of proportional representation is the Achilles heel of our democracy. Electing a party instead of a person has meant that candidates have little accountability to an immediate constituency. This has resulted in MPs preserving their substantial salaries and privileges by kowtowing to the Party leadership. MPs vote on party lines rather than according to conscience and principles.
The knock-on effect is that our current politicians are mostly inaccessible and removed from the electorate. Many people come to me having exhausted themselves attempting to contact the persons they voted for, who were meant to represent their interests in government.
Parliament is failing in its role of oversight. The African National Congress executive dictates policy in Parliament; the ANC MPs dutifully sing the leadership’s praises. The Democratic Alliance, meanwhile, does little to deepen the level of debate, instead adopting a hostile oppositional stance to score political points.
Separation of powers is a fundamental principle for a democratic society, and yet over the arms deal, Zimbabwe and HIV/Aids the government has tried to combine the executive and parliamentary powers along party lines.
There is a crisis of leadership in both the main political parties. Under President Thabo Mbeki the ANC has become an increasingly Stalinist institution. It once had a vibrant culture of debate and dissent.
As positions become available in Cabinet, candidates are favoured by their fierce loyalty to an increasingly paranoid president, rather than their ability to do the job — the current Minister of Health, Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, with incompetence and public disaffection of this magnitude, should not have survived in a democracy. At one point when Mbeki and Deputy President Jacob Zuma were out of the country she was our acting president!
The leader of the DA, Tony Leon, has led that party into a dead-end. Defining itself more by opposition than participation, the DA is not an option with a future. Leon’s arrogant and negative attitude has impeded transformation and not helped towards resolving the major threats that seriously destabilise our democracy — HIV/Aids, crime, poverty and unemployment, the lack of delivery in the rural areas and the failure of many school leavers to find tertiary education.
Is it any surprise, then, that an insidious apathy endangers our democracy and that young people who would be voting for their first time are not registering? Increasingly it has been community-based organisations and concerned movements within civil society and not the elected that can be relied on to protect our rights.
It is deeply troubling that the government keeps trying to violate our Constitution. Time and again, the Constitutional Court hands down judgements against the government, while an absence of conscience and the will to speak out in Parliament makes that vital institution look increasingly ineffectual in holding the executive to account.
The impartiality of the public protector is questionable. The Human Rights Commission has been scaled down and is under-funded. The National Directorate of Public Prosecutions has been undermined. Administrators are treated with leniency when they breach the Constitution.
It is against this background that I felt compelled to launch the Independent Democrats, a new party on the block as precious as our democracy and filled with its hopes and ideals. The support from South Africans across the country has been tremendous. The reaction of the other parties has been all-too-predictable with their political culture intolerant of initiative, dissent and debate.
The Independent Democrats celebrates and thrives on diversity. We do not have a separate women’s league or a youth wing; instead, everyone participates on every level. All South Africans are ultimately dependent on each other and policy should not harm some for the sake of others.
The current party politics lobby for special interests and will not let South Africans believe that there are win-win solutions out there, which the majority of people will support for the general good. This is the only way to improve the lives of all South Africans and to build a country that will not sink into corruption and cronyism.
The Independent Democrats is a party that cherishes our Constitution and our democratic process. We favour a shared proportional and constituency-based electoral system and will continue to lobby for this.
South Africa adopted the best Constitution in the world. In it, we set ourselves high standards. We must aspire to these ideals and preserve our institutions, lest we lapse back into the brutish totalitarian state we fought so hard to oust.
Let’s get the vote out before the lights turn red. Once lost, our democratic freedoms will not be won back easily.
Patricia de Lille is the leader of the recently formed Independent Democrats party
On the web: www.id.org.za