Conclusion: Emergent Perspectives on Opposition in South Africa

Abstract

The introduction to this collection raised a series of questions around the project of political opposition in South Africa given the challenges posed by consolidating democracy given the emergence of the African National Congress (ANC) as a ‘dominant party’. In many ways, the different contributors may be interpreted as having grappled with the issue of how South Africa’s new democracy is coping with the twin dilemmas of representation and accountability. Who and what groups of citizens are to be represented and how? How should representation be translated into behaviour that simultaneously extends political participation by all South Africa’s people without threatening the very existence of still fragile democratic structures? How is the government to be rendered accountable to the people if the ANC is not sufficiently responsive to the demands of various ‘racial’ or other minorities who feel excluded or alienated by the new political arrangements, or to major constituencies within its own ranks who feel adversely affected by the policies it is pursuing? These questions are all so central to the vitality, quality and functioning of South African democracy that it is scarcely surprising that the concept of opposition has been interpreted extremely generously. Well-established concepts such as ‘constitutional’ and ‘responsible’ opposition still hold up well and relevantly, even if there is contestation about what those terms mean in the South African context. But opposition as behaviour has been portrayed as extensive, operative within the ruling party and throughout wider society as well as between the government itself and the political parties that define themselves as ‘in opposition’. Beyond that, opposition has been promoted as a product of both structure and agency. At the most basic level, the particular shape of, and constraints upon, the parliamentary opposition have been projected as in significant part an outcome of the party list proportional representation electoral system, itself a key mechanism of the transition agreement that