South African Government

    The South African government is actually very similar to the American government in that they have the same three branches of government; the legislative, executive, and judiciary. The legislative branch is controlled by a parliament that correlates with our house of representatives and senate. The power in the executive branch is held by the president, just as our American government is. Unlike the United States, the president serves 5 year terms. The president today is Jacob Zuma. The judiciary branch is an independent combination of the legislative and executive powers.  Just like that of our legislative branch, the legislative parliament of South Africa is bicameral, meaning a two-house system; the two houses consist of the National Assembly and the National Council of Provinces, the lower and upper houses, respectively. The National Assembly has in the range of 350-400 people in it that serve 5 year terms also. The Council of provinces has 54 permanent members, 36 delegates and elects a chairman.
    Race was a major issue for a long time with the South African government. It had been present since way back in the colonial day when the British first entered the country. It became an official policy when The National Party created an apartheid from 1948 to 1994, which gave the major rights to the white race and segregated against the blacks. Many laws were conducted against black, including only being able to have specific jobs along with others. In 1970 they were officially stripped of all of their rights of citizenship and were treated to an inferior way to rights and basically banished tribal villages. Blacks who rose up against these laws were imprisoned. Most famous for this is Nelson Mandela who spent a large sum of his life in prison. He later then became president in 1994 and signaled the end of apartheid officially but in reality even though Mandela was president and a great man the affects of Apartheid still exist today.
                                         

                                                                 Nelson Mandela

http://www.thefamouspeople.com/profiles/nelson-mandela-59.php




Sources

"The History of Apartheid in South Africa." Student Information. Web. 18 Feb. 2012. <http://www-cs-students.stanford.edu/~cale/cs201/apartheid.hist.html>.

"Government in South Africa - SouthAfrica.info." South Africa's Official Gateway - Investment, Travel, Country Information - SouthAfrica.info. Web. 18 Feb. 2012. <http://www.southafrica.info/about/government/gov.htm>.