14 Accord 13

"We, the people of South Africa, recognise the injustices of our past... [and]

believe that South Africa belongs to all who live in it, united in our diversity. We

therefore... adopt this Constitution as the supreme law of the Republic so as to

heal the divisions of the past... [and] to improve the quality of life of all citizens

and free the potential of each person."

– Pre a m ble, South Africa n Constitution

From the mid-1980s until 1996, South Africans at alllevels of society engaged in an extraordinaryprocess of negotiating a transition from a repressiveand discredited apartheid state based on racialsegregation to a constitutional state with a justiciable billof rights and a legitimate democratic government. Yetdespite profound political changes, South Africa is still adivided country; over 340 years of colonialism andapartheid has not been undone in eight years. Issues ofethnicity, identity and racism are part of the nation’spsyche. Although the government has made significantprogress in addressing some basic human needs bybuilding houses and health clinics and supplying cleanwater, the gap between the ‘haves’ and ‘have nots’ is stillincreasing. Up to 22% of the population is infected withHIV/AIDS. Frustration of fundamental needs – asmanifested in poverty, unemployment, crime and socio-economic woes – are the underlying causes of ongoingdeep-rooted conflict. Despite these difficulties, politicalviolence is largely absent. It is safe to say that the dialogueprocesses at the heart of the transition helped toestablish a culture of peaceful negotiations, entrenchingand affirming a habit of constructive cooperation andcoexistence, politically as well as economically. Yetdetermined action to fulfil the promise of theConstitution’s preamble remains necessary; otherwisethe dream could explode.

European colonization and the apartheid stateNumerous peoples have long inhabited the territory thatcomprises contemporary South Africa: indigenousKhoisan groups, Bantu-speaking groups, and morerecently those with European origins, Indian and Malaybackgrounds, Jews and those of mixed ancestry classified

South Africa’snegotiatedtransition:context, analysis andevaluation

Eldred De Klerk

A rally in Cape Town in the late 1980s.Source: David Turnley/CORBIS

Formerly an anti-apartheid activist and

member of the Mass Democratic Movement

working to promote peaceful structural

change in South Africa, Eldred De Klerk is

Programme Manager of the Policing

Programme at the Graduate School of Public

and Development Management at the

University of Witwatersrand in South Africa.

15South Africa’s negotiated transition

by the South African state as ‘coloured’. The process ofnegotiating South Africa’s democratic transition in the1990s was challenged with transforming a state structurefounded on principles of segregation and inequality thatgave members of these groupings differential status.

The apartheid system had its roots in 350 years ofreligious, land and labour conflicts. In 1652, a group ofDutch settlers landed in the Cape of Good Hope andgradually established a rigidly stratified colony based onslave labour from Africa and Asia to farm the productivelands. The British gained control in 1795, with manyDutch-speaking Afrikaners fleeing further into the interiorwhere they established new colonies. Over the nextcentury, the British conquered the remaining Africankingdoms and expanded their control to subsume thenew Afrikaner ‘republics’. They also controlled many ofthe lucrative gold and diamond mines, worked mostlywith indentured Indian labourers. The British suppressedthe Afrikaner Boers rebellion from 1899-1902, deploying ascorched-earth policy and interning Afrikaner and Africancivilian communities in camps where thousands died ofhunger and disease.

With the inauguration of the new Union of South Africa in1910 – comprising the former British and Afrikanercontrolled territories under the British monarch – theAfrikaners gained predominance and were decisive inshaping a constitution based on white supremacy.

Successive legislation was passed introducing racialsegregation, reserving almost all land for whiteownership and progressively excluding the African, Asianand ‘coloured’ populations from political participation.The South African Native National Congress, which in1923 became the African National Congress (ANC), wasformed shortly after the Union of South Africa to opposeracial discrimination, extend the franchise and gainequality. Their demands were rejected by successive governments.

After the Afrikaner extremist Nationalist Party assumedpower in 1948, they began to systematically extend thepolicy of apartheid to promote the economic andpolitical power of Afrikaners, resulting in one of theworld’s least equitable distributions of wealth. Peoplewere segregated into racially defined group areas andwhole communities were displaced from areasdesignated as white only, with ‘pass laws’ used to controlthe movement of non-whites. The majority demand inSouth Africa came to be for a political system based onthe principle of ‘one person, one vote’. Slogans such as‘power to the people’ and ‘the people shall govern’ calledfor the creation of a system of governance where allcitizens could vote. This was not a challenge to theprominence of the South African state but rather thespecific uses to which state power were deployed.

16 Accord 13

Congress of the People and the Freedom CharterDrawing on Mohandas Gandhi’s earlier campaigns topromote the rights of South Africa’s Indian labourers, in1952 the ANC and the South African Indian Congressorganized a mass civil disobedience campaign thatbroadened the base of organized resistance. In 1955, fiveyears before it was banned, the ANC convened aCongress of the People to develop a Freedom Charter forall South Africans. The charter articulated not just whatthey opposed but also what they stood for. It shaped thedevelopment of political thinking, formed thefoundations for a pro-democracy movement andinfluenced the negotiations in the 1990s. It was a uniqueexperience of mass participation in a political visioningprocess amidst hostile political circumstances andshaped the implicit expectation for public participation increating a new South Africa.

Preparations began in 1953 as hundreds of activistsorganized meetings and house-to-house canvasses toalert South Africans to the project. Ordinary citizens wereasked the open-ended question: “what needs to changein South Africa for you to enjoy full and abundant lives interms of country, community and individual?” Theorganizers learned that if they wanted people toparticipate, they needed to meet them where they lived,worked and played. This lesson became a powerfuloperating principle for the democracy movement thatemerged in the 1980s. The organizers were instructed notto write demands on behalf of the people but rather tocollect and collate the perspectives they heard; to enableprocesses that allowed the dispossessed anddisempowered to find their own voice rather than seethemselves as representatives who could ‘speak for’ thepeople. Communities also nominated delegates torepresent their group at a mass gathering and collectedmoney for their travel.

The government tried to impede the Congress as itbecame obvious that the process was gatheringmomentum: meetings were banned, gatheringsdisrupted by the police, and materials confiscated ordestroyed. Despite a police cordon on 26 June 1955 inKliptown, Johannesburg, the Freedom Charter waswritten, based on the deliberations of the 2,800 delegateswho had gathered on a dusty patch of ground to debatethe results of the consultations. Its central principle wasthat: “South Africa belongs to all who live in it, black andwhite, and no government can justly claim authorityunless it is based on the will of the people.”

Anti-apartheid strugglePopular resistance increased in the 1950s and in 1960 thegovernment outlawed the ANC and its rival, theexclusively African Pan-Africanist Congress (PAC). In the

Acronyms

ANC African National Congress

AWB Afrikaner Resistance Movement

AZAPO Azanian People’s Organization

CBM Consultative Business Movement

CODESA Convention for a Democratic South Africa

COSAG Concerned South African Group

COSATU Congress of South African Trade Unions

CP Conservative Party

IFP Inkatha Freedom Party

LPC Local Peace Committee

MPNP Multi-Party Negotiating Process

NP National Party

NPA National Peace Accord

NPC National Peace Committee

NPS National Peace Secretariat

PAC Pan-Africanist Congress

RPC Regional Peace Committee

SACC South African Council of Churches

SERD Socio-Economic Reconstruction andDevelopment

SWAPO South West African People’s Organization

UDF United Democratic Front

ZANU Zimbabwe African National Union

South Africa

South Africa’s negotiated transition 17

face of massive repression, the ANC decided that solelypeaceful protest was ineffective and in 1961 formed anarmed wing, Umkonto we Sizwe (known as MK).Opposition leaders, including Nelson Mandela, wereimprisoned for life in 1964 and others fled into exile.

In June 1976, police responded to a student protest inSoweto by shooting at and killing children. It sparked arevolt that rapidly spread throughout urban blacktownships. Government forces killed hundreds ofprotesters that year and the growing Black Consciousnessmovement revitalized activism. In 1982, attempting tocurtail the continued uprising, Prime Minister P.W. Bothaimplemented constitutional reforms that split the NP,leading to the formation of the Conservative Party (CP).Botha’s reforms continued the logic of divide-and-rule tomaintain control and the 1983 Constitution created aTricameral Parliament with separate chambers for white,coloured and Indian representatives. The latter wereoffered a degree of authority over the affairs of theircommunity, while the white chamber retained power todecide national issues and could veto decisions by theother chambers. Africans were granted township councilsand nominally independent ‘homeland’ governments.

The reforms made the reality of political exclusion all themore stark. They spurred the development of a cross-community popular opposition movement to resist co-option by the tricameral system. The new UnitedDemocratic Front (UDF) was an ANC-affiliated umbrellaorganization that drew members from across SouthAfrican civil society, including religious, community andprofessional organizations. It linked with the mostly blackand ANC-aligned Congress of South African Trade Unions(COSATU) to form the Mass Democratic Movement,which endorsed the Freedom Charter as its guidingdocument. Throughout the mid-1980s, a series of urbanuprisings, strikes and consumer boycotts combined withthe ANC’s strategy of economic warfare, industrialsabotage and attacks on government targets to bring thecountry to a standstill. The government responded byrepealing some apartheid laws while imposing a nationalstate of emergency. Most political activity was banned,over 30,000 were arrested, thousands killed, and keypolitical activists assassinated by the security forces. Yet asthe country became increasingly ungovernable, some NPleaders began to realize that incremental reform wouldbe unlikely to contain the conflict over the longer term.

Incentives for negotiationA combination of internal and external factors createdconditions that led both the ANC and the NP towards therealization that their aims might be best met throughpolitical negotiations. The apparent problems ofgoverning South Africa by apartheid were compoundedby inherent economic inefficiencies. Although the socialand political objectives of apartheid were to confine

Sequence of mechanisms

1955 Freedom CharterA statement of principles to guide the pro-democracy anti-apartheid movement is drafted, through an ANC convenedCongress of the People

19898 Dec

Conference for a Democratic Future A gathering of the Mass DemocraticMovement is held to develop a commonapproach based on the ANC’s HarareDeclaration for negotiations leading to anew constitution drafted by an electedconstituent assembly.

1991June - Sept

National Peace Accord negotiation Negotiations involving representativesfrom political parties, business and churchassociations lead to an agreement signedby 27 political, trade union andgovernment leaders that creates national,regional and local peace structures.

1991 - 1992Dec 91 - May 92

Convention for a Democratic South Africa(CODESA) Negotiations are held to decide the rulesguiding the transition and a newconstitution, involving 19 parties and morethan 400 negotiators organized in work inggroups. It starts with an opening plenary(CODESA I) and finishes with a final plenary(CODESA II) that marks the breakdown ofthe process.

199226 Sept

Record of Understanding The ANC and the NP sign an agreement on the process to negotiate an interimgovernment and interim constitution.

1992 -1993April 92 -Nov 93

Multi-party Negotiating Process Negotiations involving 26 parties to draft an interim constitution, with administration provided by theConsultative Business Movement.

199427 - 29 April

General elections The first non-racial, democratic electionsare held for parties to form the transitionalgovernment and choose delegates to newparliament and Constitutional Assembly.

1994 - 1996May 94 - Oct 96

Constitutional Assembly and public participation programme490 members from 7 parties draft a newConstitution with inputs from a massivepublic participation programme. The finaltext of the Constitution is adopted 8 May1996 and an amended text. is approved on 11 October 1996.

199610 Dec

Constitution signed into lawPresident Nelson Mandela signs theConstitution into law in Sharpeville. Itcomes into effect on 4 February 1997.

18 Accord 13

black South Africans in separate territories, theindustrializing economy needed their labour in the‘white’ urban areas. These contradictions werecompounded when Botha declared a state of emergencyin 1986 that prompted international banks to suspendloans to South Africa, precipitating an immediate 50 percent drop in the currency’s value and creating severecapital scarcity. This was exacerbated by the increasinglywidespread economic sanctions and embargoes onSouth African companies and goods – which also hadsignificant symbolic political impact. These factorsconvinced many in South Africa’s influential businesscommunity that it was necessary to seek a more dramaticsolution to the conflict.

External political developments also influenced thegovernment and the ANC. In the global context ofdecolonization and expanding civil rights, apartheidSouth Africa had been treated as an international pariahfor decades. Yet the Cold War confrontation hadcombined with South Africa’s profitable investmentenvironment to encourage many Western governmentsto support the National Party government as an ally. Asthe communist governments in Eastern Europecollapsed, this polarization eased and Western alliesbegan to pressure the government to reform. The peaceprocesses in neighbouring states and theirrapprochement with the South African governmentmeant the ANC was cut off from some of its previousbases. From the mid-1980s the Soviet Union and manyAfrican governments put increasing pressure on the ANCto negotiate a political resolution to the conflict.

Negotiating the transitionFrom the early 1980s, there were a number of quietinitiatives by civil society intermediaries to open lines ofcommunication between influential people in the ANCand NP. They facilitate the initial exploratory ‘talks abouttalks’ and, by encouraging the development of personalrelationships across the lines of conflict, helped to buildconfidence in the potential for a negotiated settlement.In the mid-1980s, Nelson Mandela began preparing forthe possibility of negotiations. Soon the ANC and NPbegan to explore options through a series of secretexchanges. Elections in 1988 brought F.W. De Klerk – apragmatic reformist – to the presidency. In December1989, the Mass Democratic Movement held a meetingwhere its 4,600 delegates passed a resolution in supportof the ANC’s Harare Declaration setting out thepreconditions for negotiations – thus providing consentfor the new strategy.

A historic breakthrough came on 2 February 1990 whenDe Klerk opened parliament with a speech announcingthe unbanning of political organizations, the release ofimprisoned political leaders and conditions free forpolitical activity. This step laid the foundation for a returnof the exiled ANC leadership and talks between the

estranged political and social leadership on all sides ofthe conflict. The stage was set for formal negotiations.

Although the ANC was the largest of the oppositionpolitical groups, it was composed of sub-groupings.There was also a range of separate political formations –some of which opposed negotiations – that comprisedthe anti-apartheid movement together with the ANC.There were a number of political groupings within thewhite population, ranging from radicals opposed to anyform of negotiations to people who supported ademocratic transition to full equality. There were also anumber of parties that had formed around the differenthomeland governments or to represent specific ethnicgroup interests – such as the Transvaal Indian Congress.Of these, the largest was the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP),led by Chief Mangosuthu Buthelezi, which drew itssupport primarily from the Zulu community. As an ethnicand regionally-based party, it tended to be conservativeand realized that a state based on some form of ethnicfederation would favour its interests more than even aminimum degree of majority rule. As the processdeveloped, it partnered with Afrikaner conservativeparties in an effort to strengthen their positions. Althoughthe ANC and NP were the engines that drove thenegotiation process – and it was inconceivable thatagreement could be reached without the consent ofthese key parties – the proliferation of political groupingsthat together drew support from large numbers of SouthAfricans had to be represented in the talks if the processand its outcomes were to be seen as legitimate.

Owning the processThe ANC drew lessons from watching its counterparts inthe peace negotiations directed by internationalmediators in both Zimbabwe, where ZANU was forced todilute its major objectives, and in Namibia, where SWAPOwas shut-out of the negotiations. It was determined toseize the initiative while it had full support from allies andto avoid international mediation. The NP had found theexperience of US and British pressure in the Namibiannegotiations to be humiliating and it too was eager toavoid international mediation.

Thus South African leaders, with the assistance of civilsociety peacemakers and technical experts from homeand abroad, slowly constructed an inclusive andprincipled process for managing the multiple transitionsto a post-apartheid State, followed by a power-sharingtransitional government, and finally a newconstitutionally-mandated state structure and governingsystem. The process moved from the initial secret talksbetween NP and ANC representatives; to the post-February 1990 bilateral pre-negotiation talks betweenkey parties to determine the shape of the negotiationprocess; to the initial multilateral negotiations betweenpolitical parties to develop the 1991 National PeaceAccord (NPA) to address the political violence; to formally

Queueing to vote in northern Johannesburg, 28 April 1994.Source: AFP

South Africa’s negotiated transition 19

constituted multi-party negotiations to agree the rulesfor a transitional government and key constitutionalprinciples; and finally culminated in an electedConstitutional Assembly with an ambitious publicconsultation programme to draft the new Constitution.From its secretive origins, the process became slowlymore open to public scrutiny and, in some cases, direct participation.

There were two main facets of the multi-party process:constitutional negotiations to create a new set of rules togovern the state and the NPA structures to preventviolence (much of which appears to have been instigatedby some of the political parties). Although distinct, theyinteracted in important ways. Many of the partyrepresentatives involved in negotiating the NPA were alsoinvolved in the constitutional negotiations. The collegialrelations formed in the NPA helped with the laternegotiations, as did collaborative problem-solvingtechniques introduced by the business and churchfacilitators in the NPA process. The national, regional, andlocal structures set up by the NPA to address theproblems of political violence appear to have bothcontributed toward stabilizing the country during thetransition and to creating spaces where South Africanscould meet to address specific conflict issues in theircommunity. At times when the constitutionalnegotiations were suspended, the national NPAstructures remained active and continued to provide achannel of communication between the signatoryparties that retained oversight of the process. Thetransition would doubtless have been much moredifficult if either of these facets was missing.

The negotiated processes that guided the transition wererooted in the mass political organization that hademerged over almost a century of struggle, as well as in

the political organizations of South Africa’s whitepopulation. Both had evolved representative politicalparties with systems to hold leaders accountable to theirmembers and constituencies. During the negotiations,political leaders had to pay careful attention to bringingalong their supporters when making agreements. TheSouth African public had the opportunity to witness muchof the later negotiations through media broadcasts. Manyof the political parties consulted frequently with membersto gauge their reaction to proposals and to identify issuesof continued concern. There were opportunities tocontribute ideas and comment on the draft Constitutionand to participate in peacemaking through the local andregional peace committee structures of the NPA. It seemsthat these strategies greatly increased both the sense ofpublic ownership of the terms of the transition and gavelegitimacy to the new state structures that emerged fromthe process.

During the transition, South Africans started to debunkmisperceptions and myths about each other. As trustincreased, they began to make the political compromisesnecessary for a mutually acceptable future. They soonlearned that the benefit of engagement was in theprocess itself as well as in its outcomes. Those involvedgained a sense of the reasons why specific compromiseswere necessary and a commitment to ensuring thesuccess of agreements reached. And to this end allstakeholders – and as many people as possible – neededto be engaged and the process as transparent andaccessible as possible. The parties learned these lessonswell and over time the negotiating forums becameincreasingly open. In so doing, the process itself createdconditions for a radical change in South Africa’s formerlyexclusionary and secretive political culture and helped tocreate a more truly democratic state and society.