Page 13 - Constitutional Model for a Democratic South Africa By Prof Vuyisle Dlova

approximated to the pre-colonial patterms. The only difference perhaps was that the
indigenous people had lost control over their land, environment and destiny.

The unitary structures that came into being, the ANC and later the PAC, were political and not
social institutions. And they also suffered from all disadvantages of being anti-establishment
institutions. But even then their internal organisational structures were organised on territorial
lines. The ANC was organised on provincial lines while the PAC rejected provincialism in
favour of regionalism.

The birth of a new South Africa will be the first time that the indigenous communities will be
voluntarily coming together to form common structures of government or trade, in other
words, social institutions at a national level organised and directed by them.

The single, and supposedly, most important of those institutions that will be created, the
National Parliament, will have to be the result of political party initiatives and not vice versa.
Liberation would be brought about in effect, not by speeches in the Parliamentary chambers,
since the indigenous people had always been excluded from the Union or White Parliament; it
would have to be brought about by the advances made by the liberation movements.

That means that the movements, and not Parliament, will have the greatest clout and
influence. This has serious implications for local interest, since a party is more centralised
and hierarchical than a parliament. In a political party those who hold actual control may
easily be a small group of influential men, pre-occupied with what they deem to be in the
national interest. Members of Parliament on the other hand, are representatives in the
national assembly of their constituencies, if they fail to convince their constituencies about
their effectiveness they are not returned to parliament. This is not so with Party operatives
since their base is elsewhere and not in their localities. An illustration of this difference may
be the situation of Mr Leabua Jonathan at independence in Lesotho.

Mr Jonathan, the leader of the Basotho National Party, lost his contest of a parliamentary seat
in his home town, but his party won the first election in Lesotho. According to the constitution
he could not be Prime Minister if he was not a member of Parliament. As a result, the first
Prime Minister of Lesotho was to be somebody else, the late Mr Maseribane. A by-election in
the meantime was forced by Party Managers in a “safe” seat and Mr Leabua was elected to
Parliament and subsequently took the office of Premiership. Such men who come to power
irrespective and even against the wishes of their localities and are therefore immune and
removed from constituency pressures can perhaps be well trusted with protecting national
interest but may not always be so trusted with defence of local interest. But in order that
there should be stability, local and national interest should be carefully balanced.

In a federal structure, a national party that is ruling and which is not seen to be sensitive
enough to the interests of some region or regions will not only lose the seats representing
those constituencies in the National Parliament, it will also lose the control of the regional
legislature – and with it the power to influence legislation on those matter that are within the
exclusive competence of the regional legislature. That should help to stimulate the minds of
the party strategists.

Moreover, the independent and effective functioning of the regional assemblies and the stern
eyes of the Council of States, or upper house, would ensure greater accountability of the
national executive, the Presidency, to parliament and would serve to enhance the prestige
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and power of the parliament in the eyes of the people.