South African democracy

["Jim Powell" <autoinfo(at)acenet.co.za>]

The Politician is the employee of the voters

Our current system in South Africa is so much better than pre 1994 but it lacks accountability. The primary allegiance the proportional representatives have is to their own political party. The 50% of the local government councillors that have a constituency can at least be identified by the electorate but still are not accountable. We, the electorate, are the shareholders of South Africa Ltd. and employers of our politicians. We choose the politicians and pay their salaries. We must be able to directly control the politicians.

A combination of:

1. Constituency (Wards at all three levels of Government)

2. Top-up proportional representation

3. Portfolio positions (Ministers etc)

4. Recall of politicians (firing of politicians by the voters before the end of their 5 year term)

5. And referendum with initiative mechanisms where the electorate can reject or propose legislation and change the constitution.

 

should work the best for the employers of politicians, the voters.

The ANC would have won 80% of the seats on a constituent basis in 1994. The top up proportional vote would counter this. The ANC that obtained 69% proportional votes would then not receive any proportional seats, but would be able to appoint ministers as extra positions, as would the official opposition appoint shadow ministers. A political party that did not win any constituency seats but obtained 2% proportional votes would then be allocated 2% of the seats.

*Charles Bukowski quotes* <http://thinkexist.com/quotes/charles_bukowski/>

“The difference between a democracy and a dictatorship is that in a democracy you vote first and take orders later; in a dictatorship you don't have to waste your time voting.” Our current system can be called a 5 year dictatorship.

An employment advert for a politician in South Africa under the current system (and generally throughout the world) should read as follows:

Applicants are requested to submit their CV's for the position of politician:

1. The interview will last for a number of months.

2. Many thousands, or even millions, of your potential employers (voters) will decide whether your application will be successful

3. Should you be successful, you are guaranteed employment for 5 years unless you resign, die, are found guilty of a serious crime (we can talk about this one) or upset the group of people (political party) that you choose to be employed with.

4. Your CV does not have to be accurate or truthful

5. You can ignore your employers (the voters) for the whole of the 5 years, and even go against the wishes or your employers.

6. Your employers are relying on your goodwill and integrity, to act honestly and with dignity. But if you choose not to, there is nothing that your employers, can do about it.

7. Your employers understand that the basic rules of operation (SA Constitution), created in 1994, is, in many ways, much better than the vast majority of basic rules of many other countries and so much better than pre 1994. The basic rules were created by yourselves and in many ways for the benefit of yourselves (politicians) and detriment of the employer (voter) and as a result you, the employee, will be in charge of us, the employers (voters).

8. We recognise that many politicians, from 1994, have done sterling jobs and others have done a terrible job but we, the voters (and employers), will not able to remove you from our employment or payroll if we are not happy with your performance.

9. We, the voters (employers) will not be able to control you (politicians – employees).

10. If are successful you could change the basic rules (constitution) then you, the politician and employee, would then not govern us but would have to operate I our interest. This will be under your control and we recognize from the past that you are not likely give the power to your employers.

11. We, your employers, would like you to listen to us all the time and do as we instruct you, not just play lip service for a month and then disappear for 5 years. It is your choice whether you will do this.

12. We would like you to create a system to have an individual at every level of government that we can go to, so we would like to have constituencies at Central, Provincial and Local levels. Please put this in if you are elected

13. We will rename the position of "politician" to "5 year dictator" since this more accurately describes the position on offer. When you give the power to your employers we will rename the position to “representative”.

Look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_democracy,

http://democracybythepeople.googlepages.com/direct-participatory-democracy-links

And http://www.world-wide-democracy.net/

Jim Powell (+27) 0118041335 0825712856 autoinfo(at)acenet.co.za