<div dir="ltr">Steve,<br><br>Here are some thoughts on South Africa prompted by your post and questions:<br><br>a) The current situation in South Africa is quite interesting, especially regarding your question about whether South Africa was the first (or main) country to ask the ICJ to treat the Netanyahu government as war criminals. Yes, South Africa brought the genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice. The outgoing ANC government was very pro-Palestine and pro-Russia, while the official opposition, the DA, was very pro-Israel and pro-Ukraine. The incoming Government of National Unity (GNU) is essentially a coalition of five parties, led primarily by the ANC and DA as the "senior" partners. Although not officially stated, the original GNU agreement document, which was made public, only has the signatures of the ANC and DA. The other three parties are effectively junior partners in the new government. Therefore, the two senior partners in the GNU have radically different views on the Israel/Palestine issue.<br><br>There are other ideological differences between the ANC and DA as well. The ANC focuses on addressing past injustices, whereas the DA emphasizes economic growth. Despite these hurdles, I believe the GNU has a good chance of succeeding. There appears to be a high level of maturity and trust among the GNU leaders, though it remains risky and could potentially go very wrong.<br><br>b) Regarding your point about South Africa's unique position in contemporary global issues, especially the legacy of colonialism, I believe we are fortunate to have had strong leadership during our transition to democracy. Things could have gone much worse. Two major figures in this peaceful transition (despite significant political violence before the first democratic election in 1994) were FW de Klerk and Nelson Mandela.<br><br>- Under FW de Klerk, the last apartheid regime willingly relinquished power. This is rare in world history, where such power is typically taken by force.<br>- Nelson Mandela’s exceptional leadership during the transition is remarkable. It's amazing how someone who was incarcerated for 27 years, from 1962 until his release in 1990, could be so tolerant towards those responsible for his imprisonment.<br></div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Mon, 17 Jun 2024 at 21:41, Jochen Fromm <<a href="mailto:jofr@cas-group.net">jofr@cas-group.net</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div dir="auto">I believe we have someone from India as well? I read in "The Economist" today that Narendra Modi lost his majority in the recent elections which would be a sign that democracy is working. <div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">-J.</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div><br></div><div align="left" dir="auto" style="font-size:100%;color:rgb(0,0,0)"><div>-------- Original message --------</div><div>From: steve smith <<a href="mailto:sasmyth@swcp.com" target="_blank">sasmyth@swcp.com</a>> </div><div>Date: 6/17/24 9:19 PM (GMT+01:00) </div><div>To: <a href="mailto:friam@redfish.com" target="_blank">friam@redfish.com</a> </div><div>Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Democracy at work </div><div><br></div></div>
<p>Pieter -</p>
<p>Congratulations on what sounds like a win from your
perspective... we sure haven't exhibited much grace lately. I
felt like Gore (2000) and Hillary 2016), despite fighting for
transparency and fairness backed out/down pretty gracefully pretty
quickly... absolutely not so in 2020 and possibly never again? I
think bad habits might be harder to break than good ones...<br>
</p>
<p>Did I hear correctly that SA was the first (main?) country to ask
the ICC to treat the Netanyahu gov't as war criminals? With the
new President of MX running on that as part of her platform? Was
it the outgoing SA government or the incoming (or new coalition?)
who holds that stance? Was that stance part of the political
calculus that pushed the ANC out? <br>
</p>
<p>There are many here who are more politically astute than I am so
I'm asking for feedback on my observations:</p>
<ol>
<li>Parliamentary Democracies. A shallow search tells me that
there are easily a half-dozen variations which are for the most
part too subtly differentiated for me to know what to think
about them. Overall it seems to me that some/many of these
systems have been able to avoid the political lock-in that comes
with some of our own "winner take all" systems. Is this even
vaguely accurate, are there notable exceptions?</li>
<li>I sometimes hear that Parliamentary Democracies are "better"
in that they are more able to represent centrist majorities over
extremist populism as it feels we have been
courting/experiencing through modern history. I also sometimes
hear that the volatile nature of the possibility of on-demand
elections and reformulation of coalitions yields "too much"
change too quickly to settle into good governance?</li>
<li>I feel as if our Presidential system and style of separation
of powers was well intentioned and perhaps worked well up to a
point but that either evolutionary pressures (over time) have
undermined that separation or perhaps simply that astute (and
aggressive/greedy?) individuals have "gamed" it into ???</li>
<li>We have discussed Ranked Choice voting and elimination of
(obsolute?) institutions like the Electoral College to try to
remedy this in the US but I'm not sure how quickly we will get a
'round tuit.<br>
</li>
</ol>
<p>I don't know how many non US (active/interested?) members of
FriAM we have here but I do recognize we have notable engagement
from you (SA) and Germany (JF) and Australia and India and Ecuador
(GS) and NL (JQ/DW) and Egypt/Sweden (Mohammed ex-officio?) with
first-hand experience under various forms of parliamentary gov'ts
and the many hear are very well traveled and have close colleagues
globally who must report/confer on these issues from time to time.<br>
</p>
<p>I think of SA as being somewhat unique in a number of ways that
might be salient to the contemporary questions at hand in the
world which include maybe most notably the waning (or ringing)
legacy of the colonialism that started during the age of
exploration and then took a strange turn during modern (golden age
of transportation/communication forward?) times?<br>
</p>
<p>- Steve<br>
</p>
<div>On 6/16/24 8:59 PM, Pieter Steenekamp
wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite">
<div dir="ltr">We recently had a general election here in South
Africa, and I am extremely proud to be South African given the
current developments. The ANC, which has been in power since the
first democratic election in 1994, lost their absolute majority,
with their percentage share of the vote decreasing from around
58% to 40%.<br>
<br>
What makes me proud is the dignified manner in which they are
handling this significant loss. They negotiated an agreement
with the second-largest party to form a Government of National
Unity and are currently working with various smaller political
parties to share power based on a formula that considers the
relative share of votes. The extremist left-wing parties are
rejecting this and will form the opposition.<br>
<br>
While many things could still go wrong, it currently appears
that this is how democracy is meant to function.<br>
</div>
<br>
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