‘DA aspires a state within a state’
THE constitution of the republic refers to the provincial cabinet members as MECs (Members of the Executive Council), distinct from the national members of the cabinet, who are referred to as ministers.
I was saying this while schooling a DA councillor, who had posted a confusing message referring to both Nathi Mthethwa as minister of arts and culture and his provincial counterpart, Anroux Marais, as also minister of arts and culture.
I knew this was done both in ignorance by the said councillor, who is new in the DA, but deliberate by the Democratic Alliance because they have always harboured illusions of making the Western Cape a “state within state”.
Another DA supporter came to the councillor’s aid sighting a Western Cape constitution which refers to these provincial cabinet members as ministers. What?
I then demanded a reference to that constitution. What I have always known, albeit loosely, is that the National Party (NP), along with IFP had pushed for a federal state during Codesa (the Convention for a Democratic South Africa), because their support base was regional.
They had lost that battle, but won a few compromises within provinces. What I did not expect is for the DA, long known as progressives, who were permanently opposed to much of what the NP stood for, would mischievously continue the idea of separatism, with a provincial parliament (as opposed to a legislature) that has its own constitution, as started by the NP.
The regional fears and separatist tendencies of the NP resulted in the Western Cape Legislature enacting and adopting a constitution, which came into force on January 16, 1998.
The Western Cape is the only South African province to have adopted a constitution.
Apparently this Western Cape constitution, although subject to the constitution of South Africa, is the highest law regulating the structure and powers of the government of the Western Cape Province of South Africa.
Naturally, the current nine provinces of South Africa were created by the interim constitution, which was drawn up during the negotiations to end apartheid by the unelected group of 248 delegates representing 19 organisations, during the negotiations.
The interim constitution included provisions for a provincial legislature to adopt a provincial constitution by a two-thirds’ vote; but none were successfully adopted under its terms. (A proposed constitution for KwaZulu-Natal was rejected by the Constitutional Court in 1996.)
Only the Western Cape, under the leadership of then-premier Hernus Kriel, with the bill to enact the provincial constitution, passed it by the provincial legislature on February 21, 1997.
The failure of the final and current constitution, to be categoric that South Africa is a unitary state and regionalism of the white cabalwill be deemed unconstitutional, is troubling.
Chapter 5 of the DA constitution, which deals with exactly this issue of federalism, says: “5.1.1 Each province must have a provincial constitution, and 5.1.3 says: “Provincial constitutions are intended to suit local conditions that may differ from province to province, and may therefore, with the approval of the federal council, deviate from this constitution, to the extent that provision is made herein for such departure. So the DA is effectively saying it wants the Western Cape to deviate from the national constitution when its regional interests must be served.
Twenty-seven years ago, in a letter to the head of the apartheid state, in an attempt to launch negotiations one humble prisoner (who would become president) said, at a first meeting between the government and the ANC, that two central issues needed to be addressed.
“Firstly, the demand for majority rule in a unitary state. Secondly, the concerns of white South Africans over this demand, as well as the insistence of whites on structural guarantees that majority rule will not mean domination of the white minority by blacks.” (Mandela – National Assembly, February 5,1999). When the ANC ascended to power, all these interests were fulfilled. South Africa became a unitary and democratic country of majority rule, but one that insisted on protecting the interests of all minorities.
The DA has already manufactured itself as a fake version of the Democratic Party in the US and federalism is part of that illusion, creating a country within a country.
In this desperation of adapting an American posture, they fail to even appreciate how America arrived at this painful compromise of being federal.
The US federalism system did not come by as a choice; it was a compromise to bring together reluctant states who wanted some modicum of independence, particularly states in the South. The US started as a collection of separate colonies that slowly came together to form an independent union and revolted against the remote power of the British government.
In the Federalist Papers written by Alexander Hamilton, John Jay and James Madison between 1787 and 1788 to convince people to approve the constitution, federalism helped explain why each state has its own constitution and powers, such as being able to choose what kind of ballots it used even in national elections.
Segregationists like George Wallace and Richard Russell have celebrated US federalism too, arguing for states’ rights at a time when the national government was moving to abolish the Jim Crow laws throughout the South. This means federalism has been used to perpetuate slavery.
Was the DA effectively seeking to create a “state within state”, with its own constitution and cabal in the Western Cape? The problem is also that federalism inherently subverts a coherent national response to many fundamental challenges, more pronounced by the fact that the Western Cape is the only province without a youth policy – excluding the youth in the Western Cape from many of the policy initiatives that are initiated elsewhere in the country.
It would seem the fears of the minority, through the DA, are enduring. But the ANC in the Western Cape must also shoulder some blame from this state of affairs.
Between 2004 and 2006, the ANC was in control of national, provincial and local government and reviewing of these federalist documents should have been priority. The ANC got into power not believing in the possibility that it may lose that power, and must therefore do all it must to subject everything in the shortest possible time to the vision and aspirations of one nation with a shared vision and common destiny.
Not all political parties believe in the utopia of all living together in harmony. As Harold Meyerson, writing for the American Prospect in November 2009 said: “Federalism is more often the refuge of reactionaries than of visionaries, it has an even deeper flaws: setting the nation at cross-purposes with itself, and never more so than during economic changes.”
This explains why the Western Cape has always been at odds with the national government. We need to fix this.
Diko is the ANC Western Cape spokesperson.