Talk:President of South Africa

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South Africa: Politics Top‑importance

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Not NPOV?

The current South African regime is clearly Communist-inspired. The ANC has always been supported by the international communist organizations as well as by all Communist countries in the world! The ANC itself has always supported international marxism! Denying the communist inspirations of the current SA Constitution is impossible! Therefor, this article can no longer be considered "neutral" according to the Wikipedia Rules. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 134.58.253.130 (talk • contribs) 2006-01-31t16:36:06z

Unless you substantiate your wild claims, your assertion is meaningless and the NPOV dispute invalid. dewet|™ 16:54, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

the current south african constitution was created by the government of national unity, in which not only the anc was represented.overmore, the cold war is over and the anc does not implement a communist policy. and this claims do not belong to the discussion of this article but- if- to the one about the sa constitution.--Severino 14:06, 21 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

2 terms?

but actually i wanted to say something completely different: the article says nothing about how many terms (periods) a president in south africa (under the 1996/97 constitution) may serve! i read somewhere that its 2 terms; under this assumption mbeki couldnt candidate in 2009.maybe somebody with some competence can clear this. --Severino 14:06, 21 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, that is how I understood it as well; some of the headlines with the 2004 elections were exactly that: "Will Mbeki change the constitution to enable him to run for a third term?" So, searching on polity.org.za, I found it in §5, section 88 (Term of office of President)[1]:

88. (1) The President's term of office begins on assuming office and ends upon a vacancy occurring or when the person next elected President assumes office.

(2) No person may hold office as President for more than two terms, but when a person is elected to fill a vacancy in the office of President, the period between that election and the next election of a President is not regarded as a term.

So, I guess that answers the question ;) dewet|™ 14:19, 21 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

thx, de wet! --Severino 16:28, 21 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Replacement procedures.

Good article on the procedures for replacing Mbeki. See also section 86 of the constitution. -- Jeandré, 2008-09-24t22:00z

Numbering

The numbering of the presidents here is inconsistent with other articles on Wikipedia. See Talk:Pieter_Willem_Botha#8th_president.3F for a discussion on the numbering.

I also think the presidents starting with Mandela hould be numbered from 1, as the current presidential role can't be compared to the historical state president's role.Greenman (talk)

Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri

Shouldn't Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri be listed as a president of South Africa ? Media Advisory: Cabinet elects Communications Minister Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri as acting President, 24 September 2008 What is the difference between President and Acting President ? Wizzy…☎ 12:02, 20 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

No. Someone becomes acting president whenever the president is e.g. out of the country - which happens a lot, and many people have been AP. -- Jeandré, 2008-10-20t19:50z

Image copyright problem with File:Marais Viljoen.jpg

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Numbering

I have never seen a reliable source numbering Zuma as the 12th president. Inventing that numbering system for this page is original research and has no place on Wikipedia. There have been three different presidential sequences - the almost-meaningless ceremonial State Presidents before 1984, the executive State Presidents from 1984 to 1994, and the post-apartheid Presidents. Zuma is the 4th post-apartheid president. De Klerk was the second executive State President. There were goodness knows how many ceremonial presidents from 1961 to 1984, some of whom were only acting, one died before taking office, and so on - making a sensible numbering out of that lot is a challenge in itself. It really makes no sense conflating the numbering and declaring Zuma the 12th president of South Africa. No-one calls him that. I am (again) separating the conflated numbering into three separate streams. Zaian (talk) 17:36, 10 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Numbering again!

In a slew of "drive by" edits Special:Contributions/GoodDay changed the stable consensus position about numbering of the presidents on all the president articles. I reverted a few (those that happen to be on my watchlist) and also tried to explain the consensus position to him but he chose to disregard my explanation and undid my reverts. See my talk page for the dialogue with User:GoodDay. Please help return all the articles to the stable consensus that existed before User:GoodDay's counter-consensus edits. Roger (talk) 22:42, 8 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I've chosen to revert to your last edits (reverts of mine) & respect the consensus reached on South African Presidents (a consensus of which, I had no prior-knowlege). GoodDay (talk) 22:45, 8 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Oops, sorry ,I didn't see that in time. Apologies! (edit conflict - this is meant to be here) Roger (talk) 22:55, 8 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I'd recommend 'deleting' the State Presidents (both ceremonial & exectuive) from this article. I assuming that was the previous dispute, whether State President of South Africa & President of South Africa were the exact same office. GoodDay (talk) 22:47, 8 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thats another issue for another day - it really is way past bedtime here in SA! Roger (talk) 22:55, 8 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Listing

The listing needs to be changed and corrected. The list of State Presidents of South Africa is correct, but should not be included in the list of the Presidents of South Africa, as that has caused duplication and confusion.

The titles 'State President of South Africa' and 'President of South Africa' are NOT the same thing.

Nelson Mandela was the first President of South Africa. F.W. de Klerk is now the only living State President of South Africa.

The State Presidency was created through the 1961 Constitution as a ceremonial position to placate those who voted 'NO' in the 1960 Referendum, and given executive power through the 1983 Constitution. (203.211.71.37 (talk) 21:04, 23 November 2011 (UTC))[reply]

The timeline is wrong

The graphic is quite badly wrong - just one example it shows Mandela's term starting in 1999 but that it when it ended. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 16:49, 15 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

If you can fix that graphic, please do. I have tried before, but just made a bigger mess of it. I think that, as with the table, it should only list Presidents, and not State Presidents. Thus start with Mandela in 1994, and run through to Zuma. Crazydude22 (talk) 08:02, 16 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I think you're misreading it - the label is associated with the bar to the left of it, not the bar below it. That being said, I'm quite happy with removing the timeline since it doesn't add much to the article. - htonl (talk) 10:16, 16 June 2013 (UTC) I've added a "term length" column to the table, which is really the only thing the timeline had that the table didn't. - htonl (talk) 10:24, 16 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Taking it out as misleading - the timeline covers from 1961 but this article starts only at 1994. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 10:30, 16 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Changes to the table

User:Sundostund, please could you explain your objections to the changes I attempted to make to the table? It is not necessary for the table to span the entire width of the page, particularly on wide-screen monitors, and allowing the table to be narrower stops the boxes from forcing it further down the page and creating a huge empty space. The row that says "Presidents of post-Apartheid South Africa (also with executive powers, since 1994" is completely unnecessary and is a hangover from times when the table listed pre-94 State Presidents as well. I can't see what's wrong with the "term length" column, and the section above on this talk page explains why it was added. Finally, why did you remove the link to South African presidential election, 2008 from the row for Kgalema Motlanthe, when the other presidents have a link to the article about their election? - htonl (talk) 00:10, 19 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I just wanted to keep this table in the form which it have since a larger table (when the table listed pre-94 State Presidents as well) was split. Maybe I removed some good improvements on it (including yours), but it wasn't my intent. I'll definitely put back the link to South African presidential election, 2008, it definitely needs to be a part of this table. As for wide-screen monitors, I can't know how this table looks at it because I currently don't work on such a monitor. As for "term length" column, I can't see why its neccessary. - Sundostund (talk) 00:26, 19 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

External links modified

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Acting Presidents

We should add Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri and Cyril Ramaphosa to the presidents list

Yes we should Budzwa (talk) 14:13, 26 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

agreed EuKoketsolion (talk) 20:52, 13 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion

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President/ prime minister.

Whilst the official title of the role is "President", (the correct term in South African law), in reality in the context of comparative political studies it is pretty clear that the President of South Africa is really a "prime minister", who have a few Head of State functions bolted onto them. They are elected from and accountable to Parliament. This article pretty clearly describes a role that internationally would be called a "prime minister" even if the role is called "President" in South Africa. This is not entirely new for example in Spain the term for what is commonly internationallt called "prime minister" could also be translated as "president". Essentially the South Africans have achieved what the Irish were trying to do in the first half of the 20th century by moving head of state functions to the Prime Minister.

It's a tricky one to square... since the article by calling the "President" of South Africa a "president" when in reality they are much, much closer to what in the English language we call a "prime minister" then the article is not complying with the principle of a "worldwide view" of the topic. On the other hand the role is clearly called "President" in South African law, and does posses head of state functions. However in essence the role is fundamentally prime ministerial in nature. There must be some academic resources on this issue surely? 91.84.189.190 (talk) 20:31, 4 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Why would you in person someone that works for a company that was an accident while on duty and it killed two men but you are imprisoning the supervisor you're not going after the company for what he has done 23.243.82.106 (talk) 05:58, 9 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]