{"id":25364,"date":"2016-05-15T05:19:02","date_gmt":"2016-05-15T05:19:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/decision-to-fire-president-shouldn-t-be-in-hands\/"},"modified":"2016-05-15T05:18:41","modified_gmt":"2016-05-15T05:18:41","slug":"decision-to-fire-president-shouldn-t-be-in-hands","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/decision-to-fire-president-shouldn-t-be-in-hands\/","title":{"rendered":"Decision to fire president shouldn’t be in hands of few – former IEC head"},"content":{"rendered":"

{Cape Town \u2013 A decision to fire a president cannot be in the hands of five people in a democracy, former Independent Electoral Commission chairperson Brigalia Bam has said.}<\/p>\n

Speaking on the sidelines of the Franschhoek Literary Festival, Bam said a new system was needed in the country for elections.<\/p>\n

She said the current system was right in the beginning of democracy, but it was time for it to evolve, and South Africa had to find a system that suited it.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou cannot run a democratic state where key decisions of firing a president are made by five people, because it is in the hands of the party. The people who went to fire Thabo [Mbeki] were five, for an example,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Bam said the current system was right in 1994 and the following years, because people did not know the parties, or leaders.<\/p>\n

\u201cI couldn\u2019t have voted for you because there were no systems for us to communicate, so we had to rely on the parties to choose people for us,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

The country has ended up with a system that puts the power in the hands of a party, she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cJudging by public opinion now, people want him [President Jacob Zuma] to go, but the party position is he must stay, so he stays,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Bam was in the festival discussing her book Democracy: More than just elections.<\/p>\n

She said the country needed a system that allowed for broader participation.<\/p>\n

Where there was enough accountability to the voter, she said.<\/p>\n

As it stood, she said, the opposition could scream and say the right things, but that would be waste of time, as the control in all parties was with the top six.<\/p>\n

She called for a system where people in wards and municipalities decided who was going to be their representatives, instead of having someone chosen by the party and presented to the area.<\/p>\n

\u201cLet them make a mistake, let this person be accountable to the ward, be scared of them and respect them,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

At present, these ward councillors were only afraid of the ANC, she said, and not the residents they were supposed to be working for.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt shouldn\u2019t matter which party put you there, you should be accountable to us, in a ward,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Bam, together with political economist Moeletsi Mbeki and City Press editor Ferial Haffajee were discussing the strategies needed to protect South African\u2019s democracy. <\/p>\n

Bam was questioned on the idea of free and fair elections and the challenges faced to run such elections.<\/p>\n

She said political parties were essential in the running of free and fair elections, and how they campaigned played a part.<\/p>\n

\u201cRight now it\u2019s desperate, everyone wants to be on a list, everyone wants to have the job, and it can get violent,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\"Brigalia<\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

{Cape Town \u2013 A decision to fire a president cannot be in the hands of five people in a democracy, former Independent Electoral Commission chairperson Brigalia Bam has said.} Speaking on the sidelines of the Franschhoek Literary Festival, Bam said a new system was needed in the country for elections. She said the current system […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[100],"byline":[2462],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-25364","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics-48","tag-africa","byline-news-24"],"bylines":[{"id":2462,"name":"News 24","slug":"news-24","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"contributors":[{"id":2462,"name":"News 24","slug":"news-24","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25364","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25364"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25364\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25364"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25364"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25364"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=25364"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=25364"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}