EDITORIAL: Too much democracy?

Political scholars have argued that the problem with democracy - especially liberal democracy - is that it sometimes democratises to the point of destroying what it, in principle, should be protecting. In some Western societies, there is already a push for reforms that ‘give up’ on democracy for something slightly different. It can be argued, for example, that the reason why South Africa’s Jacob Zuma has not yet stood trial for the 1999 arms deal is because he – using available democratic recourses available to him - has thwarted every effort to bring him to justice. Attempts to prosecute him have been beset by legal challenges, using democratic rights available to him as a citizen. Here at home, our hospitals are in a crisis of an acute shortage of medical supplies because bidders who lost are spoilt for choice to appeal and seek legal recourse a thousand times - while patients are dying. That’s the downside to democracy and the freedoms it has birthed. The right to control time and processes, to the disadvantage of other citizens, is a direct result of this enigma called democracy, where those with parochial capitalist interests may stand in the way of service delivery. The fact that hospitals are without gloves or that mothers are cut open during childbirth without being administered anaesthetic to kill the pain is because democracy allows all avenues to be exhausted by those aggrieved. Surely, we love democracy, but does the end always justify the means?