I’ve been giving myself a day to digest to news on the fact that Thabo Mbeki has been “recalled” by the ANC before I comment and I feel now is a good time since the situation has calmed down somewhat.
Personally I feel cheated. I certainly didn’t vote for the ANC and I certainly never will (they are in a word “idiots”) but if I had voted for them I would not be happy. I think the reason I feel cheated is due to the fact that I wonder was there any point in my voting. If I had voted for Thabo Mbeki as my President I would have lost a lot of faith in democracy. I think this is going to have a terrible knock on effect for our youth as they become even more disillusioned by politics and the fact that voting for a politician can so easily become immaterial.
The reality of politics is that the best person for the job is not always chosen. Thabo Mbeki lacks the compassion and courage to make any real change in this country but the nature of politics is that if you elect a President then they should be there till the very end unless some major negligence or impropriety has occured. Debates about Mbeki aside, this is simply not the way to go about running a country.
The reality is that we have witnessed the first democratic coup in our country. The ANC’s decision to “recall” Mbeki sounds more like a corporate board firing their CEO. Frankly I feel that a dangerous precedent has been set here. The likes of Gwede Mantashe and Jacob Zuma are now clearly in the running for supreme power. Not only are they morally dubious but clearly understand how to subvert both the law and the constitution.
In my mind this comes at the worst possible time. In a global uncertain economic time what South Africa desperately requires is a stable government and to be seen as a safe haven in Africa. International investors are going to loose a lot of confidence in South Africa and in our economically tumultuous time this is the last thing we need.
Thabo Mbeki was a poor President at best but compared to the likes of Gwede (I can barely speak English) Mantashe he’s our countries saviour. I just wish Mandela would say something to the ANC voters to make sure that Zuma is not President and ends up in jail where he belongs.
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I initially saw this as an evil coup as well – really the way that Africa works I suppose – but when digging back not to far into our history, FW de Klerk did the same thing to PW Botha (!!! who knew???!!!) although for “medical reasons” and that was a very good thing for this country. (Google “FW de Klerk ousts PW Botha” or such). It’s amazing how the political field and the contestants change so dramatically, yet the game remains the same.
Another fact that was semi-comforting was hearing that despite the bleating of the rampant morons in the ANC, the likes of Cyril Ramaphosa and Tokyo Sexwale are also supporting this decision. These men have large vested interests in big business and so will not stand by and allow the actions of the ANC to destroy their empires.
Just a correction on one of your thoughts, We work on a proportional representation system of goverment in SA,as such, we don’t actually elect a president. When it comes to national elections, one votes for a party. The parties then get a number seats in parliment proportional to the number of votes they got. Parliment then elects a president from one of its members. So technically we don’t really get to decide who will be president, we simply hope that the party we elect will honor their promise to elect whom ever they said they would
As such, I don’t know if the people will feel cheated, they voted for the ANC, and the ANC has decided to recall the president that they (effectively) put into power. Of course this entire situation is ludicaris, but hey, TIA.
apologies for all the typos!