POLITICS
STEVEN FRIEDMAN: Why the anti-Zuma campaign is not automatically democratic
‘A core feature of the campaign is uniform thinking that would make North Koreans feel at home’
Is SA’s democracy under greater threat from those who doubt it, or those who defend it? The campaign for the removal of President Jacob Zuma is, on the surface, about as democratic as you can imagine: in democracies, presidents are accountable to the people, and this one has much for which he should be forced to account. But the way in which the campaign is pursued may hurt, not help, democracy. A core feature of the campaign is uniform thinking that would make North Koreans feel at home. Not only are strategies accepted without debate, views on democratic politics that would puzzle democrats elsewhere are adopted without question. It is not antidemocratic for a political party to remove a committee chair the leadership don’t like — it may be foolish if the chair is popular and the move costs the parties votes, but that is a question of strategy, not principle.The same is true of parties that discipline their members because they don’t like their views. Anyone who does not like the ...
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