What Future for Constitutional Democracy in South Africa?

Abstract

South Africa embraced constitutional democracy in 1994 following the collapse of the Apartheid regime. The constitution that was finally passed in 1996 promised the development of a social democratic society. Within two decades, much of the promise contained in its constitutional instrument had been hollowed out. This paper considers the manner in which the ruling party, the African National Congress, embraced a project termed State Capture in which the key guardrails of constitutional democracy were transformed into instruments for the perpetuation of rent seeking by a political elite who effectively eschewed the social democratic project begun in 1994. Apart from the rapacious effect of rent captures the ANC continues to be guided by the idea of democratic centralism in which all its members of the National Parliament place the interests of the party above those of the constitution and thus the nation. Within this context constitutional democracy is viewed as the enemy of the people, personified by the Party. In addition, the paper describes the rise of political populism, the continued high levels of inequality and the vested interests of traditional leaders. It then examines the manner in which these conditions may bring about the replacement of constitutional democracy with a form of autocratic legalism.