Former President says ruling party
wrong to contemplate a break with 1994 consensus
THE ANC PLANS TO END SOUTH AFRICA'S
HISTORIC CONSTITUTIONAL CONSENSUS
Eighteen years ago we South Africans
reached agreement on the kind of country we wanted to become.
After three years of difficult negotiations we agreed that we wanted
a society in which the Constitution - and not the majority of the day
- would be sovereign.
We agreed that that Constitution should
make full provision for the protection of all our fundamental rights;
that we would have free and independent courts; and that we would
establish a truly democratic system of government subject to the rule
of law.
We all agreed on the need for
transformation - on the rapid development of our people toward
equality, human dignity and the full enjoyment of rights. We
also agreed on the need to protect our languages and cultures and to
ensure that no-one could be arbitrarily deprived of their property.
Parties representing some 90% of our
people - and substantial majorities of all our communities - endorsed
the constitutional accord. We reached agreement despite our
deeply divided and traumatic history. We succeeded despite all
the crises, the walk-outs, the violence and the reality that we all
had to make painful concessions.
Our achievement was rightly regarded by
the whole world as one of the crowning glories of the latter part of
the 20th century. It was seen everywhere as an example to all
divided societies of what could be achieved by rational debate,
compromise and goodwill. I believe that whatever party we
belonged to, it was our finest hour.
It was on this basis that the National
Party under my leadership surrendered sovereign power - not to
another political party - but to the constitution.
Earlier this week, in discussion papers
for its upcoming policy conference, the ANC announced that it wants
to sweep all this away. It believes that the balance of power
nationally and globally has shifted sufficiently for it to dispense
with the compromises that it had made in 1993 and 1996.
According to Jeff Radebe, the ANC's
Policy Chief, "our first transition embodied a framework and a
national consensus that may have been appropriate for political
emancipation, a political transition, but has proven inadequate and
inappropriate for our social and economic transformation phase."
Radebe also announced that the ANC
plans to dispense with some of the cornerstones on which our new
society has been established, including the present role and powers
of the provinces. In line with the controversial Green Paper on
Land Reform property rights would also be at risk. Other
cornerstones of the constitutional accord that are already under
threat include language rights, the right to education in the
language of one's choice; the freedom of expression and the right to
access information. Most seriously, the government is
maneuvering to limit the role of the courts.
None of this should come as a surprise,
since the ANC is simply implementing the next steps in its
long-announced National Democratic Revolution.
The National Party did not agree to the
transition naively or with its eyes closed to the ideological nature
of the tripartite alliance. It realised full well that the ANC
might one day reconsider its solemn undertakings. However, it
believed that in addition to the guarantees that we had negotiated
into the constitution there were other powerful forces that would
help to ensure that all parties would honour our accord:
the collapse of the Soviet Union
had swept the ideological ground from under the feet of communists
all over the world;
a new global consensus had
developed on the fundamentals of democratic governance and
responsible fiscal and economic policy. In our globalising
world, no government could afford to ignore these new international
norms;
we also hoped that as the ANC
became used to the complexities of government it would quietly
abandon its outmoded ideologies;
finally, we realised that just as
we could not govern the country against the will of the majority, a
majority government would not be able to rule effectively if it
violated the fundamental rights of our minorities. Our
symbiotic relationship dictated that whether we liked it or not we
would have to work together to achieve success.
We would have been foolish not to seize
this unique opportunity for a just and honorable settlement.
The subsequent eighteen years have
proved that this was the right decision. As the ANC points out, South
Africa has made substantial progress in so many areas. Our
country is respected in Africa and throughout the world as an
inspiring example of non-racial democracy. With all its faults
it is a far better and a far more just country than it was in the
past.
We have indeed not made nearly enough
progress in addressing unacceptable levels of inequality, poverty and
unemployment. However, these transformation failures cannot be
ascribed to our constitution. They are primarily the
consequence of inappropriate policies.
Evidently, the ANC now wants to
jeopardise all of this. It imagines that it can write off the
influence of free market democracies and align itself instead with
China, Russia and its friends in Cuba.
It thinks that it can invent a new
approach to economic development that will free it from the need for
the fiscal responsibility that it practised with such good effect for
the first seventeen years of its rule.
It thinks, most dangerously, that it
can treat minorities as it pleases and impose new forms of
discrimination against them in line with its ideology of the National
Democratic Revolution.
It is wrong.
Any move to abandon the solemn national
consensus that we reached during the constitutional negotiations
would destroy irreparably the brave foundations for national unity,
democracy and transformation that we have developed since 1994. It
would slash open once again the divisions of the past and divide the
country along racial lines. Once the powers of independent courts
have been sufficiently diluted - it would end the prospect of a
society based on democratic values and fundamental human rights.
There are many other matters in the
discussion papers that are problematic, but I have dealt here only
with some of the key issues. As Mr Radebe points out, the
discussion papers are intended to be the basis for a vigorous
national debate. He invites "all sectors of South African
Society and our people at large to engage with these discussion
documents" because they "will have a profound bearing on
the future development of this nation."
In this spirit, I would like to renew
my request to the government to hold genuine discussions on these
issues with those elements of our society - from all our communities
- who continue to support the constitutional consensus that the ANC
now wishes to discard.
FW de Klerk
