Due to a shocking series of administrative errors no ANC candidates in Potchefstroom will be running in the upcoming elections. Quite simply no names were handed in to the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) before the deadline closed. The man accused of this error is ANC provincial secretary for North West Kabelo Mataboge.
In response to the allegations Mataboge acknowledged that the ANC will not be contesting seven of the wards in Potchefstroom and then said, "We hope this is due to human error and not political conspiracy by the IEC" (The Mail and Guardian, 21 to 28 April 2011, page 3). This is a very dangerous comment to be making.
In order for our democracy to survive and flourish there needs to be unwavering faith in the institutions that protect our freedom. Democracy lives and dies on holding free and fair elections and thus the independence of an Electoral Committee is paramount.
As long as the ANC accepts comments such as the one made by Mataboge a platform can be laid to question our election results. As we have seen in so many fledgling democracies, when a set of results come out that are unfavourable to the incumbents then the results are questioned. As soon as results can be questioned there will be room for revolution, coup d’état and civil war.
The ANC need to distance themselves from the comments made by Mataboge and be very careful with the language that they use in future.
Each of the organisations I have been involved with have worked very hard to promote and protect their 'public face'. Is it wrong/naive/ignorant of me to expect the ANC to do the same? It seems to me that every week another ANC representative has said something that hurts the party. To be fair, when there are thousands who represent the ANC, someone is bound to let something slip. But where is the appropriate, transparent disciplinary process proportional to the public faux pas? Instead someone let Mr. Mataboge speak to the press after his colossal failure and make matters worse.
ReplyDeleteI would be a lot more comfortable with an ANC that guards its tenets more than shoot-from-the-hip pseudo-politicians who can't think beyond their noses.
Astute comment Nick. I may be too hard on the ANC when it is only one (remarkably unorganised) maverick who is bringing the party into disrepute
ReplyDeleteonly one?? isn't this rather one additional one to an ever increasing list? After Julius Malema... after the whole Caster Symaya debacle...
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