South Africa: Democracy, civil society and the right to dissent

'An elected government that does not accept that people have a right to form new parties and to contest its hold on power may be a "democratically elected" government, but it is not a democratic government. In a democracy, everyone has the right to form parties and to contest for state power at the polls and any limitation on that right is a limitation on democracy,' writes Richard Pithouse about ANC comments criticising a recent civil society conference convened by COSATU and the Treatment Action Campaign.