HELL YES!
With South Africa’s current political situation the best thing that we can do for the citizens of this country is expose them to as many different choices as possible.
A recent comment on this blog alluded to the fact that South Africa’s democracy is failing because we almost become a single party state. This is problematic because people begin to think that there is only one option when they vote. Instead of thinking that there are many options, people be default and almost instinct begin to vote for one party and in SA that party is the ANC. This becomes more problematic because people begin to feel as if the alternative isn’t representative and in turn believe that they should not vote because there are no options.
The worst thing that can happen to a democratic society is for the citizens of the country to become apathetic. Apathy breeds inaction and inaction breeds dictatorship. Edmund Burke said “Evil prevails when good people do nothing”. This is the truth right now in our political climate. We need action.
IOL reports: “The public broadcaster told the Independent Communications Authority of SA (Icasa) that the flighting of political party messages could cost it up to R91,8-million in lost advertising revenue.
“It’s a lot of money… Eighty percent of our revenue comes from advertising,” said SABC news chief Snuki Zikalala.
“[It will] dent our finances, badly, badly.”
Hmmm… let us see, shall we rather dent the finances of the governmental broadcaster (read voice) or shall we rather attempt to keep our democracy in place? I am voting for the latter. I believe that one of the biggest problems facing the citizens of this nation is lack of voter education. We don’t know what parties we can vote for, can you name just six parties in SA? If you an I am sure you are one of the few. If you can’t welcome to the club. To me the most sensible thing to do is send out adverts on our national broadcaster to the public which indicate that the most important thing to the government and its broadcaster is the public and their education.
I am sure there are many people who will disagree with me on this one but I am, right now, rallying for votes, voting and action. Screw the public broadcaster’s back pocket. Screw the CEO’s and bigwigs bonuses. What the hell is R9mill at the end of the day? That’s the difference between 9 top managers and their wives Mercedes and the honour of our democracy.
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October 7th, 2008 at 11:29 am
Nic, you make your point well, but there are enough news and debate programmes on SABC channels. Political parties have more than enough opportunities to make their cases.
If parties have to pay for ads only the rich ones like the ANC and DA could probably afford it anyway.
October 7th, 2008 at 2:08 pm
Do any other parties really count, GlassPearl? TV ads are incredibly effective in the USA because they’re publicly investigated and ‘truth checked’ by shows like Larry King Live. So the politicians can advertise anything they like, knowing full well that if they talk crap, they’re going to be exposed.
October 7th, 2008 at 2:49 pm
I’m not so sure … I’ll need to chew on this one a while longer, but I’ll blog it later. In essence, I don’t think it’s a very hot idea.
Wogans last blog post..2oceansvibe.com was hacked
October 7th, 2008 at 6:14 pm
While I’m not against parties advertising, I think something has to be said about the resources required to do it, I agree with GlassPearl, that if afforded the opportunity (but required to pay) only the ANC and DA would likely be able to do it. I think though that advertising should be used to push the policies of the parties, something that doesn’t really happen in SA. Sure parties claim that they’ll aim to give more jobs, reduce crime etc, but they never actually state how they would go about doing it. So inevitably people vote on race lines and not policy lines, because (I feel) the parties policies aren’t made public enough, and even if they are, they never truly get scrutinized in public forum.
Oh and here’s a list of six parties off the top of my head!
1) ANC (African National Congress)
2) DA (Democratic Alliance)
3) ID (Independent Democrats)
4) IFP (Inkata Freedom Party)
5) ACDP (African Christian Democratic Party)
6) FF Plus (Freedom Front Plus)
October 9th, 2008 at 12:53 am
“A democracy is dangerous because it is a one-vote system as opposed to a Republic, which is a three-vote system. Three votes to check tyranny, not just one. Citizens have not been informed of their other two votes.”
~ Braveheart GoldWater Swans ~
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July 1st, 2011 at 4:23 pm
Dude, right on there breothr.
July 1st, 2011 at 5:44 pm
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