Page 12 - Constitutional Model for a Democratic South Africa By Prof Vuyisle Dlova

CONSTITUTIONAL PROPOSITIONS

Franchise

The issue of franchise rights in the present day world admits of little controversy. As we
attempted to show it is only the Nationalist Party, even amongst the settler political
organisations, that feel that race is relevant to the question as to whether a citizen should
enjoy voting rights.

The Progressive Federal Party has in the past advocated some form of qualified franchise.
The decisions however in the tete-a- tete held between Mr Buthelezi and the white liberals of
the Natal, in the so-called Kwanatala Indaba, seem to suggest that the white liberal fraternity
will no longer insist on their position that the level of ones “civilisation”, or approximation to
European ways of life, should in the southern tip of the African continent, be relevant to the
question as to whether one should be given a vote or not.

As indicated above, the PAC and ANC do not differ on the issue of franchise rights based on
Universal Adult Suffrage. The two organisations however, differ on the issue of who in South
Africa has an automatic right to citizenship – an issue which is wholly separate, although it is
linked.

In a future South Africa there seems to be no room therefore for any denial of franchise rights
based on race, colour, creed or religious belief. The main basis for the exercise of franchise
rights, therefore, should be citizenship. Any adult citizen who has not been disqualified
according to law should be entitled to vote.

Federalism, Unitarism, Quasi-federalism

We propose a quasi-federal structure of government for a future south Africa. By this we
mean a system of government that recognises the primacy of the national government on all
issues that affect the life of the nation as a whole, while at the same time recognising the
primacy of regional governments on all matters whose implications, reasonably defined, do
not transcend the region itself.

What we propose is not classical federalism in that it not so much an association of
governments with equal competence over their separate spheres. For instance, as we will
elaborate later, the national Parliament, if it can muster the requisite majority, can in our
model legislate in the “national interest” even on those issues that are designated by the
constitution as being exclusive to the regional legislatures. It is not unitary government either,
in that, save in exceptional cases, the national Parliament is excluded from legislating on
certain listed matters which the constitution defines as being within the sole legislative
competence of the regional legislatures.

Why change from Unitarism

In our preceding background section we sought to demonstrate, inter alia, that before the
advent of colonialism, the various indigenous people lived as distinct and independent people.
Colonialism and later unitarism under the Union Parliament, the Governor-General and the
Secretary of State for Native Affairs did not result into unitarist institutions within the
indigenous communities. The alien administration instead, was territorially based and it also