FNF Malaysia

South Africa: ANC government threatens to undermine the country’s budding democracy with draconian legislation reminiscent of the Apartheid era.

The Leader of the FNF partner Democratic Alliance (DA), Helen Zille, and the DA Parliamentary Leader, Athol Trollip MP, explain why they are concerned about recent legislation proposed by the African National Congress (ANC) Government.

Helen Zille states that “the Protection of Information Bill poses the greatest legislative threat to our [South African] democracy since 1994”. She says that the DA will fight the bill with every means at their disposal.

“Just as under Apartheid the bill will allow the government to invoke the ‘national interest’ to cover up power abuse… (It) will outlaw investigative journalism and whistle-blowing in relation to activities undertaken by the state or the government”.

She fears that the bill will not only endanger press freedom but that parliament will effectively lose its ability to oversee the executive.

Athol Trollip MP, the Parliamentary Leader of the DA, elaborates on how the Protection of Information Bill fits in with other ANC legislation aimed clearly at centralizing power in the areas of public administration and health.

“This tendency by the ANC to over-centralize, to centralize more and more, to entrench their power, will affect all of us [South Africans] more and more in one way or the other.”

He explains that the ANC’s centralisation drives are yet another manifestation of its closed crony society politics. The centralisation of powers clearly stands in contrast to the DA’s vision of an Open Opportunity Society for All, and in fact poses a serious threat to it.

“As the DA wins more and more municipalities, and hopefully more and more provinces, the ANC becomes all the more concerned about maintaining control even of areas that they have lost control of at the ballot box.”