Comrade TJ has posed a few important questions that in my view need to be taken into consideration. He asks about the role of opposition parties post the 1994 breakthrough, the necessity of a multi party democracy verses a “bi-party democracy”. First of all I need to clearly say form the word go that I’m no constitutional guru and therefore would only comment on this matter meanly form general point of view. Firstly comrade I need to say that there is NO such a system as a two party system any where in the world in the true sense of the word. You have a system that is dominated mainly by two parties…but that doesn’t imply that you don’t have other parties represented in parliaments. Take the USA for instance although you had not two but three candidates contesting for the position of president. You had a democrat, a republican and an independent candidate. Pulse on top of that had you more that 500 individuals contesting to be congress men and women. Be it either they represent a party or they are just contesting as individuals. So you find that even though you have 2 majors as they called you also have a lot of independents representing different interest and opinions in the house of congress. This is also the case in number 10 Downing Street. Back to the question at hand. My own view is that two major political parties representing two contesting ideologies, policies and classes would be better for South Africa and maybe the entire African content rather than having our so called multi party system. Of course this doesn’t mean you won’t have other smaller parties who would align themselves with the majors solely based on principle and policy( the alliance would not be long term but short term based on particular policies). Unlike the current situation where opposition parties are forming coalition exclusively for the purpose of unseating the ruling party. This in my view is a myopic approach and is bond to strengthen the ANC in the long run rather weakening it. Once all these parties realize that their policy positions are mach more of a dividing factor rather a common denominator… they will slowly disintegrate. Although it must be said that form an ANC point of view having many political parties who have no clear policy position and ideological standpoint is an advantage, this is because at least the ANC at a national level has the ability to unambiguously outline its policy position. As to how these are translated into implementable bread and butter programs is a topic for another day. My view is that the pros for a two major’s party system with few independents out weigh the cons for a multi party system that letters parliament with many smaller parties who in fact are ineffective as political parties but would be highly effective as pressure and advocacy groups. Imagine for example if the TAC (Treatment and action Campaign) had contest for national elections. It would have not have won the fight against the distribution of ARVs and so forth. It would have been forced focus on abstract political issues rather than on concrete civil matters. Another example is that if the ACDP for the argument s sake had been a anti abortion pressure group they would have succeed rather debating issues which the ANC has resolved on a long time ago.
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