🔒 Teresa Conradie, Herman Mashaba, Alec Hogg: Big political changes are coming – Webinar Part 3

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There has been a major shift in the political landscape beneath our feet, with a Constitutional Court ruling paving the way for new entrants to Parliament. This is part three of a four part webinar series, published on BizNews Premium, on how this court case is set to change political governance in South Africa. Listen to Teresa Conradie of the legal firm which drove the case, Maphalla Mokate Conradie, entrepreneur and former mayor of Johannesburg Herman Mashaba and webinar host and BizNews founder Alec Hogg drill into the details of how the ruling could erode ANC power. – Editor

So interesting listening to you and Herman a little earlier. When I talk to fellow South Africans and people internationally – many global South Africans – they bewail the fact that we have gangsters and criminals in Parliament. Yet we have such amazing people outside of it. We punch way above our weight on a global stage. Elon Musk is changing the world, and he comes from Pretoria – where you come from, Teresa. The owner of the L.A. Times is from South Africa as well. The biggest private equity firm in the United States, Sequoia Capital, is run by a guy called Roelof Botha – also from South Africa.
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And then you think of people like Makhosi Khosa, Herman – who is now outside of Parliament, Thuli Madonsela – if we had a vote for president in South Africa, I wonder who would win between Ramaphosa and Madonsela? It would be a very close contest. And so on and so forth. So what you’ve done… Many South Africans might just wake up to the reality that we can also get good people into Parliament as these same good people that are outside. Graham Hill asks; this is a good move, but given that we need a very strong opposition to the ANC – won’t this move to have independence end up splitting the vote and make the opposition divided and weak? 

I personally don’t actually believe that that would really be the case. Remember, I’ve already indicated a massive decline of the ANC over the last few elections, and they’re going to get further decline. So the only way we can obviously really bring in a new dispensation in this country – regardless of who you vote for – it’s a question of the 19 million South Africans to go out and extra to vote because the ANC vote, as you’re aware, was just under 10 million voters that they had. And now; come the next elections – I can tell you they are going to drop by another two to three million votes.

So if you ever want to remove the ANC from government, it’s a question of actually putting (whether it’s another five or six different political parties there) – you must go into a coalition, because one thing that we cannot deny; South Africa is going to face coalition arrangements for the next I don’t know how many years. And personally, I’m actually right now in favor of a coalition arrangement, because it keeps government in check. They don’t really have the luxury of abusing your power.

And whether I like it or not, if you’re a historian or a political scientist; coalition is the future of this country. For me personally, I’m on a journey to unseat the ANC and whoever takes over – it doesn’t matter. I was running a seven way multiparty government. Let us run a multiparty government. One day we will get it right. Right now, our country’s known internationally to really be a gangster state. I remember on three successive occasions in a year going to New York.

At the airport, as I get by The New York Times, South Africa would be on the headlines. People obviously are being educated about staying away from South Africa because we’ve got a criminal government in South Africa. So we are known internationally – that our government is a criminal enterprise and it’s up to the people of South Africa. If they want credible, ethical leadership, that ethical leadership has to be decided by South Africans. It can’t be decided by the English or the French or the Americans. Us people of South Africa are the ones who must really take that responsibility. 

This one I would like to raise for you, Teresa. It’s from Dr Corne Mulder, MP. He says; I’m afraid the judgment is not going to change much. The Constitutional Court – way back in certifying the current Constitution in 1996 – made it clear that the constitutional assembly chose to make political parties the vehicle to exercise the political will of the electorate. My question is; where in the judgment is provision made that the independent candidates should be treated differently than other candidates and that exclusive seats where independence should be provided for? 

It’s a fairly long answer, but if one listened to all of the arguments in court, then there’s absolutely no doubt that this is exactly what the judgment says. The judgment speaks about the content of the political rights of South African citizens. In other words, not only the right to vote, but also the right to stand for public office. So, if one looks at the judgment in depth, there’s absolutely no doubt that the mandate for Parliament is to make sure that the electoral system is redesigned to make provision for independent candidates. There’s no prescription – they’re not saying how many.

But certainly, if Parliament dilutes the judgment by having a small minority available or a number of seats available, we will certainly take the matter back to the Constitutional Court and ask the Constitutional Court to again declare the Electoral Act unconstitutional. If I could just, once again, come back to the whole question of a strong opposition. Remember that parliament is our legislator and it’s all about the numbers game. And if one’s got the majority; whether it’s against the individual parliamentarian’s conscience or not – they must vote along the party lines. So, if the ruling party no longer has a majority in terms of numbers – anything is possible. It’s not even necessary for all of the independent candidates to agree, but it will no longer be possible for the ruling party to simply push through legislation that the majority of South Africans don’t agree with. 

It’s extraordinary, actually, that we had so much support from everybody in the ANC for a corrupt president and they all now disown him and the nine lost years, etc., forgetting that they kept him there by going through and having secret votes to do that. When I have a look from our perspective; where we come from, from the economy, from the business world – it’s all changing. The Fourth Industrial Revolution has dramatically changed that. So surely politics has to change as well, and perhaps this is the judgment that’s going to do it. There’s a question from Alexandra Herbert for you, Teresa; was Roelf Meyer involved in this process, because you would have an interesting historical perspective to this judgment. 

No, Roelf wasn’t involved in the lead up to the judgment, and I would love to hear his view on it. I can remember years ago I shared a platform with him in Washington and he was challenging the Americans; whether their system of two major parties or whether our system of forty six possibilities on the ballot paper – is a better reflection of true democracy. So, I’d love to hear Roelf’s view on this.

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