By Nco Dube

Amazingly the uninformed are very quick to point out how South Africa should follow the example of the US and allow citizens to elect their President directly.
What they don’t know, or mischievously, choose to ignore is that Americans don’t elect their President directly. In fact, constitutionally, South Africans have more say and participation in the election of our President than Americans do in theirs.

The most famous ruse pulled over our eyes is that the South African President is elected at ANC conferences and exclude the rest of us. This is a deliberate lie. The ANC chooses its own leaders who then contest national elections as presidential candidates like all other political parties.

What the misinformed and the lying brigade omit to tell us on the US process is that the two main political parties there hold what is called Primaries which where they nominate possible presidential contenders, this culminates into a Convention where each party nominates its candidate to contest the elections. This is not un-similar to the ANC branch nominations process which culminates into its national conference.

The biggest ruse of the US elections though is that it does not follow the fundamental tenet of democracy, that of “one man, one vote”.

In the elections we just saw in the US, the public was not voting directly for either Obama or Romney, they were voting for electoral college votes assigned to each state. If the candidate wins in that state, they take all the college votes assigned to that state. There is a total of 538 of these votes.

It’s only two weeks after the elections that the US President is actually voted into office by the college electors. The electors are party loyalists appointed by the winning party.

The interesting bit is that college electors are not constitutionally bound to vote as pledged, that is they don’t have to vote according to the mandate they received from the popular vote!

So, essentially, the power to elect the leader of the so called free world, lies in the hands of a few, faceless, 538 party loyalists.

Another interesting bit is that a candidate can win more popular votes (actual votes cast) and still lose the US elections. George W Bush got fewer votes than Al Gore but went on to become the 43rd US President because he scored more college votes.

Contrast this with our situation. In South Africa we don’t hold two horse races when it comes to national elections like the US does. In the last elections we had almost 30 candidates on it!

In our elections we vote for political parties who send representatives proportionately to parliament. Parliament, at it’s first sitting, then elects the president. This system has a direct link from the voters wishes to the election of the president and is transparent.

Facts are distorted in South Africa to portray our hard earned democracy as meaningless compared countries like the US. This is done with political objectives to attack the ruling party.

One hears of constantly repeated claims that only ANC conference candidates elect the South African President. Bull! The ANC president is not necessarily the President of the country. He/She still has to contest elections like all the other leaders of other political parties.

If people want to have a say in who the ANC president is, then they must join the ANC and participate in its internal processes.

Of course there is a lot that can improve in our electoral system but fact is we have a far more practical, participatory and transparent democracy than the US. No doubt about that.