Independent Candidates: the disappointment.

I have sung Chief Justice Ramadhani's praises elsewhere in the blog. And I have talked about the independent candidate issue. I admit, I did not expect that the collision of the two would prove so disappointing.

I don't happen to believe in a structuralist view of the world: rules are there to serve us, not the other way around. We engineer our social systems, and therefore must always question the basics: who are the rule-makers and in whose favor are they rigging the game? So while there are probably legally defensible reasons for the Chief Justice and his learned friends to throw the problem back to the toothless parliament, in truth their decision was a weaseling of the highest order. It has the paw prints of The Establishment all over it.

Having wasted our collective time, these people are going to leave it to the next parliament to address the issue. Which we all know they will not do in time for the next general election. And so the patriarchy wins again. Oh, my kingdom for an activist Judiciary!