President Zuma, answering a question from from DA parliamentary leader Lindiwe Mazibuko yesterday in front of the National Assembly, said “[y]ou have more rights because you’re a majority; you have less rights because you’re a minority. That’s how democracy works.”

The opposition parliamentarians had a collective hernia before one shouted, quite fairly, at our democratically elected president “You don’t understand democracy!”

To put this rather strange remark in context; Mazibuko had asked if the President would consider changes to the labour relations regime, which pegs the union representation threshold at 51%. News24 reported that:

She said this had led to the situation where AMCU (the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union) was not a recognised union at Lonmin’s platinum mine, and therefore excluded from wage negotiations.

But JZ responded by suggesting that in a democracy the majority prevailed. Maybe his mind was on elections and counting votes, where the majority does win. He went on:

We operate within regulated society… Between workers and employers there have been negotiations and agreements, and those agreements must be respected.

In a democratic situation, it is the majority that prevail. I can’t change the rules because you want to make a particular point. You can’t then say, smaller unions must then be compared to the bigger unions in the same way.

The president’s point was that workers who did not join the majority union could not expect the same privileges. He finished with this wonderful clanger which we will repeat because a statement like this from a president is just too good a comedic moment:

You have more rights because you’re a majority; you have less rights because you’re a minority. That’s how democracy works.

We are all aware that is not how a democracy works. We have set up a pretty good one along with an amazing constitution and Bill of Rights, which are designed so that the very opposite is true. Zuma, not giving up, suggested that it was the other parliamentarians who did not understand democracy saying it was “a question of accepting the rules of democracy, and operating within them”. I think we can all agree that all the nation wants is for our government to start operating – more often – within the rules.

[Source: News24]