A Future Perspective on Constitutional Stability

Frederik Willem De Klerk

doi:10.17159/1727-3781/2010/v13i2a2638

Abstract

 The 2nd of February next year will be the twentieth anniversary of the beginning of the transformation process that led to the establishment of our present non-racial constitutional democracy. The previous year when I had addressed the National Party caucus after my unexpected election as leader of the party, I stressed the need to take a quantum leap to break out of the political and economic dead-end street in which we found ourselves. The overwhelming reaction was "jump FW, jump!". 

Highlights

The 2nd of February year will be the twentieth anniversary of the beginning of the transformation process that led to the establishment of our present non-racial constitutional democracy
The previous year when I had addressed the National Party caucus after my unexpected election as leader of the party, I stressed the need to take a quantum leap to break out of the political and economic dead-end street in which we found ourselves
We reasoned that it was unlikely that there would ever again be such favourable circumstances for a settlement: after the fall of the Berlin Wall, global Communism was in headlong disarray; the South African Communist Party – which had controlled virtually all the seats on the ANC's National Executive Committee during the 1980s – was in shell-shocked retreat; after the failure of the 1984–1987 offensive to make South Africa ungovernable, the ANC had at last accepted that there would not be a revolutionary outcome; all parties accepted that the continuing escalation of conflict would destroy the economy and any hope of building a united future; and in the September 1989 elections, the white electorate had given the National Party a clear mandate for comprehensive reform and negotiations

Summary

FW de Klerk**

The 2nd of February year will be the twentieth anniversary of the beginning of the transformation process that led to the establishment of our present non-racial constitutional democracy. The unhappy reality is that: rampant violent crime too often deprives people of their right to life, their right to be free from all forms of violence, and their right to property; the right to equality has been negated by the fact that after fifteen years, we are still one of the most unequal societies in the world – the State has not adopted appropriate legislative and other measures to protect and advance persons disadvantaged by unfair discrimination; the appropriate measures are not unbalanced affirmative action but decent education, effective service delivery and job creation; the rights of children are not properly respected – as is illustrated by high levels of abuse and neglect, and the existence of so many street children and child-headed households the right to basic education has been seriously limited by the failure to deliver decent education; and too many people do not, in practice, enjoy adequate access to the courts or to a trial without unreasonable delay. COSATU and the SACP support the ANC's doctrine of the National Democratic Revolution – but only as a basis for further progress toward the achievement of their medium-term vision "to secure working class hegemony in the State in its diversity and in all other sites of power".

Findings