Disc Dem

Disc Dem

Friday 5 February 2016

Hypocrisy, Fraud, and Tyranny

When Frederick W Robertson said, "There are three things in the world that deserve no mercy - hypocrisy, fraud, and tyranny", he could have been talking about our current crop of politicians.
Hypocrisy
Julius Malema insisting that Jacob Zuma "pays back the money" is hypocrisy of the first order - how about your R20m in outstanding income tax Mr Malema? Helen Zille’s hand wringing over budget cuts that will mean freezing more operational posts, while saying nothing about the Municipal Demarcation Board creating even more political seats in local councils, is also highly hypocritical. Nothing more needs to be said about the jaw-dropping hypocrisy of the ANC that hasn’t already been said.
Fraud
In among all the known areas of blatant corruption, our local government electoral system is itself a pernicious fraud of the first order. All proportional councillors in local government, and the parties who appoint them, are defrauding the public of money that should rather be spent on service delivery.  The Municipal Structures Act, and the Municipal Demarcation Act remove the need for proportional representation. This is borne out by the 2011 electoral results, where proportional councillors could influence the balance of power in only 14 of the 234 local and metro councils.  For the rest, DA and ANC councillors vote as instructed by the party leadership, and the “also-ran” parties are just ignored. Proportional representation is an expensive political irrelevancy, costing in the region of R7.5 billion for the 5 years from 2011, which is likely to increase to around R9 billion for the next 5 year term.
Tyranny
Political party leaders are guilty of tyranny as they hold all the cards when it comes to who gets what job at all three levels of government, with an ultimatum to toe the party (my) line or get kicked out. The EFF have also taken tyranny to a new level with their unsubtle intimidation of anyone who disagrees with them, as underlined by their veiled threat to certain journalists at a recent press conference.
No Mercy
Civil society holds the key, and we must show the present political cabal no mercy. We must start to believe in ourselves and stop listening to all the politically populist babble, and their even baser ploy of throwing pooh at each other in the hope that some of it will stick.  We need to stand up to politicians of all parties and say we have had enough of your divisive policies and behaviour. We must also tell them in no uncertain terms that we are no longer going to pay for unnecessary sycophants, and other party faithful cadres, that they parachute into municipalities through the irrelevant proportional representation system.

To break the stranglehold that politicians have over us and our local governments, we need to change the dual candidacy proportional representation party list system to a single candidacy constituency based system.  While political resistance to this is guaranteed, we must believe that we can force them to change this insidious system, and not just shrug it off as an impossibility – as Madiba said “It is always impossible until it is done”.  Time is short, but #PRMUSTFALL before we are saddled with another 5 years of this unnecessary political expense.

1 comment:

  1. DIRECT DEMOCRACY is a government system that ensures accountability to you, the voter!
    Only vote for a politician that is accountable to the voters
    The Local Government elections are coming 3rd August 2016

    Our current constitution and political system in South Africa is considered one of the best in the world but worse than other constitutions in some of its content and application.

    - The system lacks in accountability of politicians to the voters.
    - The primary allegiance of proportion representation politicians is to their political party and not to the voters!
    - Many of the ward councillors see their political party as their first allegiance, not the voter, the employers of the politicians.

    Our system is effectively a 5-year dictatorship

    We, the voters, are
    - The legitimate shareholders of South Africa, province and local government.
    - The employers of our politicians.

    As such, voters should have control over politicians and accountability of the politicians to the voters.

    A direct democratic system where laws are passed with the electorate in final control, if they decide to exercise that right through referendum, will attain the need for accountability.

    You can make a difference:

    Present the document below to each candidate councilor and political party, negotiate the terms and insist they sign to show their commitment to direct democracy.

    I, (name of candidate councilor or political party), email____________________website_________________________telephone________________________
    - Recognize that I am effectively an employee of the voters
    - Recognize that the voters pay my salary through payment of taxes and rates,
    - Recognize that the current system does not put the voters in control and therefore, I:
    - Commit myself to regular and effective consultation with the voting public through public meetings and continuous communication via the press, radio stations or in person.
    - Will only vote in accordance to the best interest of the voters who elected me, who may be polled by means of a referendum similar in format to that used for petitions.
    - Will ensure that the wishes of my constituency are effectively communicated and advocated for, in and at all levels of government.
    - Will apply my total energy, ability and powers to uphold the laws and ensure that voters receive efficient and effective service deliveries.
    - Am and remain accountable for my performance to the voters only.
    - Fully agree that the registered voters of a ward may remove me from office (excluding proportional representation). A petition of 25% of the number of voters who voted in the last election within my ward or designated constituency is needed to affect my removal.
    - Accept that all registered voters are free to sign, including those who did not vote in the last election. The recall petition may only be initiated after 6 months have elapsed since the last election.
    - Understand that, should an election be called, the recall process will be cancelled.
    - Will promote legislation at all levels of government and changes to the South African Constitution in order to realise a system of constituency with top up proportional representation, recall, referendum initiative and Direct Democracy.

    I will send the scanned signed contract to info@directdemocracy.org.za for display on the www.directdemocracy.org.za for the voters to examine

    Signed (candidate or political party)

    Direct democracy details
    PLEASE ACT TODAY AND REAP THE REWARDS TOMORROW.
    "A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they'll never sit in." Greek Proverb
    A nation of sheep creates a government of wolves
    Jim Powell 0825712856

    Important links:
    http://www.swissinfo.ch/directdemocracy/how-to
    http://www.swissworld.org/media/political_system/htdocs_en/index.html

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