The Dutch first arrived at the Cape of Good Hope in 1652 and then had Cape Town taken away by the British in 1795 (O’Neil, 632 ).
Part one:
The Dutch first arrived at the Cape of Good Hope in 1652 and then had Cape Town taken away by the British in 1795 (O’Neil, 632 ). Then the great Boer wars occurred throughout 1880-1881 then again in 1899-1902 between the Afrikaners and the British. A union was then formed in 1910 by English speaking South Africans. The National Party (NP) was formed in 1914. In 1960 the Congress was banned and Nelson Mandela was imprisoned (O’Neil,635). Majority Government was eventually created under Mandela after negotiating with President Klerk. Thabo Mbeki is elected president in 1999 only to later be replaced by Kglagema Montlanthe in 2008 (O’Neil, 632). Then he was replaced by Jacob Zuma a year later. South Africa has a “bicameral parliament” (O’Neil, 640). The governmental system is primarily Democratic. It consists of a legislative -executive system which is parliamentary. The legislature is composed of an upper and lower house. The lower house being the National Assembly and the upper house being The National Council of Provinces. The chief executive is the president in South Africa who serves as both the head of state and the head of government. He is chosen by the lower house and is actually able to dissolve the house as well (O’Neil, 639). The National Assembly (the lower house) is made up of 400 members. The upper house, as mentioned earlier, is the National Council of Provinces, is made up of 90 members, and is weaker than the National Council. The National Assembly can override the upper house with a 2/3 vote (O’Neil, 640). The National Council exists so that the voices of the locals are heard and taken into account. A new group that emerged as a result of the ANC is the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) who voice their opinions on “overly pro-business, and excessively free-market” (O’Neil, 644). Another group is the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP), which impacted the political side of the state due to its desire to deprive blacks of their basic citizenship. Another group that is very influential is the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) who promote workers rights. Race and discrimination are yet other factors that influence the politics of the state. Honestly, I’m not sure. In my opinion it seems very unclear. The country is divided amongst race, ethnicities, and it’s political groups. The people of the country are not as united as other countries that we have seen in the past. This is actually a crucial factor for future well being of the country. As for the government, the idea of having one person have the power over both state and the country is quite risky.
Part Two:
A negative aspect for me would be the fact that they have one person who has control over both the state and the country in itself. It’s cool that they have a council designated for answering and hearing the requests of the local people. I feel like that is a great amount of unbalanced power given to one person. The houses should have more control over the decisions this person makes. Usually its situations like this that seem to create an authoritarianism ruling. The US has branches where they limit the power of the president and the states have a different representative who also has their power balanced by other branches. I just think they should be cautioned away from having a similar governmental system as this where one person holds all the power.
and also this student?
Part: 1
The development of modern South Africa as we know it stemmed from the development of a long struggle between fighting against foreign rule and intervention, and the goal of developing a strong internal government. For a vast amount of time, the South African system was dominated and ruled by a system based on race and racial hierarchy called the apartheid rule. The implementation enforced and popularized racial superiority and ideals which often left the majority ( who were colored) suppressed. South Africa was lead and ruled by Europeans despite being the minorities and making up an insignificant part of the population the indigenous people of the land became heavily discriminated against. After a long history of discrimination 1994 had brought and new a monumental chapter in the history of South Africa. In 1994 after a long conflict with the systems that oppressed the country, Nelson Mandela led the people of South Africa to freedom after the colonization submitted and renounced their power to the South Africans to construct their long aimed government.
Currently, as we know today the South Africa government can be broken into three branches these are the precedency, cabinet, and legislature. Like most governments, these functions work in correlation to thus ensure the stability and success of the South African government. South Africa has a parliamentary system, with a bicameral parliament and a constitutional court like many other countries today. The President acts as head of state and head of government (O’Neil 638). The Presidency had power over the cabinet and government policy and acts as the symbolic figure of the nation ( O’Neil 639). The legislative system is a bicameral parliament, the lower house of the parliament ( The National Assembly) is composed of 400 members is the strongest and has the most power, and also selects the President. In contrast the upper house in charge of representing the provinces in South Africa. On the other hand, the judicial system serves to sort constitutional issues and provides checks and balances on the government, thus playing a role in ensuring stability. This explains why the judicial branch is vastly trusted by South Africans( O’Neil 640). The landscape of the country also plays a huge role in politics. The country had three capital cities that play differing but important roles. Pretoria serves as the seat of government, Cape Town offers the role as the legislative capital while Bloemfontein serves as the judicial capital. It is significant to consider that South Africans have been divided on racial and ethnic issues. The nation appears to be divided between the wealthy white and the largely poorer black population (O’Neil 649), a vast percentage of South African citizens are unemployed ( O’ Neil 653). Overall the future looks good for the South African citizens, compared to post 1994 they have a strong democratic system which offers them more political freedom. However as previously stated their ethic divide has caused internal conflict among South Africans, in my view, they need to incorporate some nationalism to help aid their citizens in one nation. However, currently, there are many issues that are facing South Africa. There is a vast amount of high rate of violent crimes ( O’Neil, 658-660). The underlining issue of government corruption is bound to soon ruin the trust that the people of South Africa have in their government.
Part: 2
A negative aspect of the government system in South Africa is in my view the length of the President’s term. In the South African constitution and by the constitution the President can serve two five year terms. In hindsight, this is not much longer than the terms of the United States Presidency, however, with this being coupled with the high level of corruption already present in the South African government this extensive-term could easily leave room for a hidden political agenda to be carried out. Another underlining issue with the Presidency is that the President is elected by the National Assembly barring approval from the judiciaries and not the people. This offers a lukewarm form of democracy to the citizens of South Africa in determining how the future of their economy and government will be run. Having said this, The South African structure of government is very similar to that of the United States. In my view, it is very important for a country like South Africa to give people the power to choose their citizens especially considering their history. The lack of this could lead to the risk of a communist- like the government controlling everything in South Africa. A key aspect of South Africa’s government system that I would caution other countries away from would be the corruption within government systems. If the people in government ( who have the most power ) are corrupt and work to serve their own personal goals rather than South Africa’s, this could perhaps lead to an economy and state that is both impoverished like South Africa’s current state.
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