REMARKS BY: DR MANGOSUTHU BUTHELEZI, MP,
PRESIDENT OF THE INKATHA FREEDOM PARTY OF SOUTH AFRICA

Mombasa: October 11, 2006

I have had the honour and pleasure of being associated with the Konrad Adenauer Foundation for more than 40 years in a journey during which the rapid changes in my own circumstances reflected the growth and challenges of South Africa.

I began my association with the Konrad Adenauer Foundation in the early 1970s when I was the Chief Minister of the erstwhile KwaZulu Government during the dark days of apartheid. I drew on the assistance of Konrad Adenauer Foundation when we embarked on the journey which began the dialogue across the racial divides on constitutional and institutional themes with the Buthelezi Commission in 1980 and the KwaZulu Natal Indaba in 1986, leading to the KwaZulu Natal Joint Executive Authority which was South Africa's first interracial government.

The Konrad Adenauer Foundation was my strong partner during the six-year process of constitutional negotiations which spanned the period from apartheid to our final constitution of 1996. When I became the new South Africa's Minister of Home Affairs, I became even more indebted to the Konrad Adenauer Foundation for its steadfast and indeed massive assistance provided in respect of policy formulation and legislative processes in which I was personally involved.

These ranged from the institutional accommodation of traditional leadership, which resulted in a unique monograph on the matter, to the assistance given in the eighteen-month process of constitutional negotiations. These led to the provincial Constitution of KwaZulu-Natal unanimously adopted in March 1996, but never certified by the Constitutional Court.

The Konrad Adenauer Foundation was pivotal to attempts made in South Africa to promote a strong constitutional framework inspired by the notion of checks and balances and by the respect of the rule of law. In the early 1990s, together we realised that the endemically autocratic and centralist forces underpinning our political system were likely to lead us into a one-party state, and we therefore advocated the need to establish in South Africa a strong federal system.

Unfortunately, history has proven us right in that ordinary political dynamics in South Africa are now suffocating under the yoke of a single hegemonic political force which controls the state and the civil society. This force has concentrated power in a conveyor belt where all organs of the state seem to carry political instructions which emanate from the central core of the ruling party.

Within this context, we are now experiencing the compounding effect of the progressive disintegration of the divide and the distinction between the ruling party and the state. The highest civil servants and functionaries have become the highest operatives within the ruling party.

By the same token, selected people have been deployed from within the inner core of the ruling party to key positions in the economic system, in both public and private sectors. Black economic empowerment programmes have served the purpose of deploying such ruling party officials to key controlling positions in private companies.

The end result is that most of those in my country who exercise political, social, cultural or economic power of one sort or another have been deployed to their respective positions by the inner circle of the ruling party and thus remain accountable to it, often participating even in its inner workings.

The picture which emerges out of this context is both disconcerting and familiar as it reminds me of many other African experiences in which all power within society was concentrated in the centre and then the centre inevitably collapsed under the weight of inadequacy and excessive burden.

I have dedicated my entire life to consolidating the rule of law in my country. I believe that this may only happen within the parameters of an open and pluralist society in which no single force, interest group or political party has the capacity or opportunity to control the whole of our society. It is therefore painful for me to see how natural checks and balances in an open society such as opinion-makers and universities, are also feeding off the conveyor belt of political power without exercising an autonomous role.

I have even been criticised for using the word "autonomy", when I advocated that provinces, local government, universities, churches, trade unions and other important building blocks of our society ought to be and remain autonomous.

Somehow there is an instinctive hostility against the very notion of autonomy as if in a properly run society everything ought to be uniformly checked, vetted and brought within the coordinating function of a single matrix. Not even the trade unions have discovered their own ability to exercise an independent role which is detached from the inner workings of the ruling party.

In the context within which the political system itself does not have a full appreciation of the value of the rule of law, it becomes difficult to promote it amongst the citizenry. Many people still do not comprehend the existence of the state as an abstract entity which is separate from the ruling party. Many of them feel that the benefits they receive from the state, such as pensions, housing, health services and education, are in fact provided by their political leaders, who, in turn, reinforce this misconception by constantly asserting that they themselves are delivering such services to the people.

The relationship between people and the state rooted in well-understood rights and obligations has not yet been formed, despite the fact that this is essentially what turns a subject into a citizen. For instance, when I was Minister of Home Affairs, I noticed with sadness, but without surprise, that there was an unwillingness to provide electoral education in response to the question "why" people should vote.

In other words, there was an unwillingness to explain to the people that they in fact have the power to hire and fire any political representatives. This would, of course, counter the surviving perception of many people in my country that voting is an act of allegiance or homage to those who are in power and who are looked at intrinsically as leaders.

The result of such an attitude is that our people tend to express their dissent not by empowering an alternative opposition party, but merely by staying way from voting. This often does not alter the electoral outcome, or send out the intended message.

I personally felt the full brunt of the resistance to democratise the system towards greater electoral accountability. When I was the Minister of Home Affairs, I had the invidious privilege of piloting the two major reforms which openly or secretly the government rejected, namely, the immigration and the electoral reform.

My electoral reform was conducted in partnership with the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, which assisted us through useful conferences. During this process, it became clear that our electoral system, based as it is on straight and exclusive proportional representation, provides sufficient fairness, practicality and proportionality, but lacks greatly in political accountability.

All those who are elected under this system are effectively chosen by the political party bosses and remain accountable to them. This state of affairs is strengthened by a provision in our Constitution which enables a political party, or rather its bosses, to terminate the job of any elected representative, including Members of Parliament, by merely terminating their membership in the party. This is the "chilling effect" of their freedom to dissent.

The only place where this does not apply is in segments of local government elected on the basis of a constituency system. The outcome of our process of policy formulation suggested that a reform of the electoral system along the lines of a mixed PR-constituency system resembling the one successfully employed for more than half a century in Germany.

However, this proposal was rejected and the political system remained protective of its privileges and unlimited powers without anyone in the academia or the civil society raising a strong objection to it, in spite of my pointing out that, it being a contract between the politicians and the electorate, the electoral system could not be unilaterally decided by politicians alone.

I spent half a century in politics and government. I still carry the role as Chairman of the House of Traditional Leaders in KwaZulu-Natal. However, mindful of my original professional background as a lawyer, and having come from a rural environment, I have never seen myself as a man of politics or a man of government but rather and merely as a citizen who entered the corridors of government to try and make it work at its best for those who remain outside.

I have reached a point in my life where I do not have to score political points or make statements to advance my career. It is therefore painful for me to see how the same spirit, which animated me, seems almost foreign to the new breed of politicians who have been catapulted onto the higher levels of responsibility and power by the success of our struggle for liberation.

I hope that these present challenges may be alleviated by future developments. However, I know that this may only become possible by virtue of a more active citizenry which becomes more aware of its rights and role within society. We are far from having reached this objective.

Passing laws does not create the rule of law unless the law can rule and the rule of man can be eliminated not only from the collection of legal instruments but also, and more importantly, from within the hearts and minds of the people, so that they themselves can complete the most difficult, but equally necessary, journey from being subjects of leaders to becoming citizens of a republic.

I hope that the Konrad Adenauer Foundation will remain our partner in Southern Africa to promote the awareness necessary to transform subjects into citizens so that the promise may be fulfilled that one day Africa too may have the blessing of many governments which are republics not only in name but also in spirit.

For more information: Liezl van der Merwe 083 611 7470