Page 9 - Constitutional Model for a Democratic South Africa By Prof Vuyisle Dlova

organisations. Perhaps the overriding need to weld the people into a solid mass in the
struggle against colonialism and racism has contributed to this.

Any admission of any regional or nationality difference may be easily used by unscrupulous
elements to promote their pluralist theories and approaches, to the South African problem,
whose sole aim is to perpetuate white domination.

Experience elsewhere in Africa seems to suggest, however, that these issues cannot be left
until after liberation; they should be treated, albeit, discreetly. The ANC has, however,
propounded in its Freedom Charter a policy of racial federalism / ethnical federation. The
Freedom Charter guarantees equal rights for all national groups. The Congress Alliance, the
umbrella body that includes the ANC, operated on this premise of ethnical federalism. PAC
objected to this policy as giving to the alien minorities unfair advantage totally
disproportionate with their numbers. This racial / ethnical federalism could, however, not be
translated into territorial terms since, historically, the alien minorities have no land or landed
territory of their own in South Africa, and when the Group Areas Act is repealed, as it would
naturally go with apartheid, there is no guarantee that the alien minorities would constitute a
majority anywhere in South Africa.

Interestingly, the PAC in its organisation, at least during the days of its legal existence,
operated on territorial or regional federal lines. In its constitution the chairmen of the regions
were also constitutional vice-presidents of the organisations and were allowed in that capacity
to take part in the deliberations of the national executive.

The issue as to whether South Africa will be an executive presidential system or will separate
the office of head of state from that of head of government has not been discussed in the
publications of the two organizations.

The question as to whether a single party or one-party rule is envisaged has also not
featured. The Freedom Charter, in its recital of freedoms does of course include the freedom
of association. But as the Zambian example has shown, freedom of association may be
guaranteed in a constitution but be qualified as not to include the freedom to form a political
9
party. The constitutional implications of the ANC alliance with the Communist Party has not
been spelt out, and the implications for the future existence of the ANC and PAC as legal
entities is not clear.

The PAC leader, the late Mangaliso Robert Sobukwe pronounced himself as being against all
forms of totalitarianism and by implication, therefore against dictatorship of one class whether
acting in its own right, or through an unelected elite exercising power in its name or on its
behalf. He called instead for a united front, of the oppressed and dispossessed African
masses, in which the interests of illiterate and semi-illiterate masses would predominate. The
PAC committed itself to a functioning democracy.

However, its views on the broader definition of democracy to include a right to associate
politically only within the framework of a single party, the so-called one-party democracy, has
not been stated in public at least.

Finally, what is the attitude of the PAC and ANC on the issue of enactment of a Bill of rights in
the future constitution? Parts of the ANC Freedom Charter do read like a recital of
fundamental freedoms of the type guaranteed in a classic Bill of Rights. Of course not much
need to be read into this. The “Republic of South Africa” constitution (1983) recites these
fundamental freedoms in the preamble to that constitution. However, in the substantive