Union Buildings

Only the executive branch of government is located in Pretoria's Union Buildings, up on a hill overlooking the city. Parliament sits in Cape Town. So I haven't been able to revive the habit I acquired in Ottawa of visiting the MPs to watch them hurl recited insults and accusations at one another (and to see if they're as pathetically, embarassingly immature as their counterparts in Canada).

I had hoped to have a proper walk around the buildings (I can't actually confirm that there is more than one, but they're referred to in the plural so I presume there are), but that doesn't appear to be allowed.

I haven't been doing a good job of following politics while I've been here, but one recent event caught my attention and is worth passing on. Last month there was a two-week “Floor crossing”period, which I believe might have been the first implementation of some new legislation. During this time MPs (and MLAs) were free to cross the floor of the House from their own party to any other party of their choice. As one can imagine, there were many whisperings and secretive negotiations that took place leading up to this time, all of which came across as pretty undemocratic to me. The great irony of the whole thing was that, whereas the legislation was introduced by the opposition parties, the big winner was the governing ANC (African National Congress) which won something like 10 new seats, 5 or so at the federal level. None of the opposition parties did well from the process, and for some it was a calamity. Incredibly (for this Canadian intern, fresh from reading a number of books on the history of South Africa) the New National Party, succesor to the all-powerful National Party that ruled from ‘48 to the end of apartheid in '94, was unceremoniously wiped away. The party had been reduced to one seat in the last election, and the lonely MP slunk across the floor to, I believe, the ANC, which now has well over two thirds of seats in the House.