Martin van Staden on federalism and South Africa's failing centre

On the eve of the local elections, Dr Martin van Staden argued that South Africa's real problem was not who ran its towns, but how much power sat in Pretoria. Freshly appointed to build AfriForum's new Institute for Federalism, the legal scholar told Alec Hogg that communities were already doing the state's job, from policing to diplomacy, and that Citrusdal's farmers could not afford to wait five years for a better vote after Washington's Agoa decision. He accused the DA, IFP and Freedom Front Plus of believing in federalism only "on a sunny day", made the uncomfortable case that failing municipalities should feel the consequences of how they vote, and answered the charge that community federalism is ethnic separatism by another name.