{"id":230440,"date":"2022-07-05T00:56:14","date_gmt":"2022-07-04T22:56:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.groundup.org.za\/article\/hundreds-organisations-swear-to-defend-south-africas-constitutional-democracy\/"},"modified":"2022-07-05T00:56:14","modified_gmt":"2022-07-04T22:56:14","slug":"hundreds-of-organisations-swear-to-defend-constitutional-democracy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/hundreds-of-organisations-swear-to-defend-constitutional-democracy\/","title":{"rendered":"Hundreds of organisations swear to defend constitutional democracy"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

\"Photo<\/a><\/p>\n

Over 300 people met at the Birchwood conference centre on the weekend to declare their support for South Africa\u2019s constitutional democracy. Photo supplied<\/p>\n

Over 100 organisations and over 300 people met at the Birchwood conference centre in Ekurhuleni on 1 and 2 July to discuss the erosion of constitutional rights.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Constitution \u2026 is under direct threat due to the \u2026 nefarious activities of corrupt forces in our society that are opposed to democratic rule, the rule of law and constitutionalism,\u201d reads the conference declaration<\/a>. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe need new and innovative ways of thinking about politics, mobilising and organising to re-ignite people\u2019s power,\u201d it says. \u201cOur point of departure should be based on clear constitutional principles, economic inclusion, values of solidarity, social and climate justice, ethical behaviour, respect, collaboration, and transparency, which must advance participatory democracy and unity.\u201d<\/p>\n

The meeting was led by Defend Our Democracy, an organisation that was founded in March 2021. It aims to eradicate state capture, corruption and looting in the public and private sector, speak up against unsubstantiated attacks on the judiciary, demand accountability, deepen participatory democracy to achieve socio-economic justice and support campaigns of organisations that call for democratic rights.<\/p>\n

Duduetsang Mmeti, a spokesperson for Defend Our Democracy, said the organisation is bringing together \u201call sectors of society\u201d to bring attention to threats to democracy.<\/p>\n

Reverend Frank Chikane, who was involved in the formation of the organisation, addressed the delegates at the opening of the conference. He called on them to \u201cenvision a new political reality that is driven by an active citizenry\u201d to renew constitutional democracy. \u201cWe meet here as a troubled nation, subjected to a nightmare by corrupt, corrupted, and compromised political leaders, greedy and rotten business, and the criminal underworld that has become part of this toxic mix.\u201d<\/p>\n

Chikane said that corrupt and inept leaders \u201chave become a criminal gang that kill those who stand in their way, including whistle-blowers and potential witnesses. They are prepared to bankrupt the country and even destroy its democratic pillars to protect themselves. They want to impose leaders on us to enable them to continue their treacherous activities against the people of South Africa\u201d.<\/p>\n

In a keynote address, Mcebisi Jonas stressed four ways in which democracy can backslide. The first is when those in power undermine democratic institutions. The second is when governing parties reject the legitimacy of opposition parties. The third is the global economic and climate crisis characterised by extreme inequality. The fourth is the actual curtailment of democracy, for example by undermining elections.<\/p>\n

Executive director of Campaign for Free Expression Anton Harber said the mobilisation of civil society organisations is a step in the right direction. \u201cWe recognise that we have to partner with other civil society organisations to combine our strength. We are in such a critical time in this country\u2019s democracy,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Harber added that the conference was a \u201cvery broad church\u201d and \u201cthe point is that we all share a concern about our Constitution and democracy. I am hopeful that we can build a strong voice together.\u201d<\/p>\n

National secretary of Abahlali BaseMjondolo Thapelo Mohapi said his organisation supported the initiative. But he said that Abahlali BaseMjondolo has received minimal solidarity from those calling for the defence of democracy.<\/p>\n

\u201cTheir silence is very loud when we are killed. When it suits them, we must now be on board. We are part of [the conference] because we want to defend democracy,\u201d Mohapi said. \u201cPeople must speak when Abahlali are killed. Democracy is under threat when people in shacks are killed, when services on the ground are not provided.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mmeti said there are a lot of issues that the organisations need to reach consensus on in order to solidify a plan of action. But for now, the conference was a clarion call to protect democracy and the Constitution.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

\n

\u00a9 2022 GroundUp. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License<\/a>.<\/p>\n

You may republish this article, so long as you credit the authors and GroundUp, and do not change the text. Please include a link back to the original article.<\/p>\n

We put an invisible pixel in the article so that we can count traffic to republishers. All analytics tools are solely on our servers. We do not give our logs to any third party. Logs are deleted after two weeks. We do not use any IP address identifying information except to count regional traffic. We are solely interested in counting hits, not tracking<\/b> users. If you republish, please do not delete the invisible pixel.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

Source: GroundUp<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Over 300 people met at the Birchwood conference centre on the weekend to declare their support for South Africa\u2019s constitutional democracy. Photo supplied Over 100 organisations and over 300 people met at the Birchwood conference centre in Ekurhuleni on 1 and 2 July to discuss the erosion of constitutional rights. \u201cThe Constitution \u2026 is under […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":230441,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[9928],"tags":[28001],"class_list":{"0":"post-230440","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-groundup","8":"tag-groundup","9":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/hundreds-of-organisations-swear-to-defend-constitutional-democracy.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230440","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=230440"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230440\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/230441"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=230440"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=230440"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=230440"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}