Page 8 - Constitutional Model for a Democratic South Africa By Prof Vuyisle Dlova

PAC / ANC and the future constitution

The forerunner of the present ANC, the Native Congress of South Africa, was born in 1912 –
that is two years after the South Africa Act of 1909, establishing the Union of South Africa,
had come into operation. The African people left out in the cold by the constitution and by the
settlers decided to come together in an umbrella organization.

The ANC was to enjoy almost undivided loyalty of the African people for almost fifty years. In
1956, however, the ANC decided, in the words of the Freedom Charter, to declare for all the
world to know that South Africa belonged to all who live in it, black and white. A section of the
ANC membership led by a University lecturer, the late Mangaliso Sobukwe, which had often
opposed from within, what it regarded as a policy of appeasement and capitulationism on the
part of the ANC leadership, left the ANC and in 1959 decided to form the PAC. And from that
day the African nation was to be divided into two camps, the “charterists” or progressive
democrats, (the criteria for progressiveness being acceptance of whites into membership of
one’s organisation) and the “Africanists”.

Between them, these two organisations command the loyalty of the overwhelming majority of
the African people and they have been both recognised by the international community as the
representatives of the indigenous African majority. The following account therefore, is a brief
synopsis of their views on the future constitution of South Africa, in the light of the questions
posed at the beginning of this article. This task has been made a little difficult in that both
organisations have not published any definite proposals on the constitutional future of South
Africa.

Reliance was mainly on their numerous publications which are mostly political and not legal
and therefore tend to be rich on generalities and not so rich on details and precision.
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However, the Freedom Charter, a statement of constitutional beliefs of the ANC, is the main
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source on ANC; and the speeches of the late leader of the PAC, which include basic
documents on the PAC, is the other main source on the latter organisation.

The question of franchise rights is answered categorically by the ANC Freedom Charter with
a commitment to universal adult suffrage. The PAC also commits itself to the establishment
of a non-racial Africanist Republic. The PAC, however, also says that South Africa / Azania
belongs to the indigenous African majority and to all those who may be of alien descent who
nonetheless owe their only allegiance to the Africa soil and accepts the rule of an African
majority. It can be safely assumed that there will be a presumption that all those whites, who
enjoy citizenship rights under the present alien rule, who remain in South Africa after the
demise of apartheid accept the rule of an African majority. However the “only allegiance”
criteria suggest that dual citizenship will not be allowed in a PAC South Africa.

What is clear is that these PAC qualification affect only the issue of citizenship rights but they
are no qualification to the exercise by all adult citizens of a right to vote. If this interpretation
be correct, then the issue of universal adult suffrage seems to be accepted by both
organizations.

The issue as to whether South Africa will remain a unitary state or whether it may incorporate
some federal features has not been addressed, at least in the publications of the two