By Paul Hoffman*
It is prudent to define what the terms “constitutional democracy” and “democratic centralism” mean in the context in which they are used in SA.
The SA version of constitutional democracy under the rule of law is defined in the values and principles which inform the 1996 Constitution that emerged from the National Accord, the negotiation processes that brought the parliamentary sovereignty of apartheid to an end, and the work of the Constituent Assembly, all of which weaved the miracle of Archbishop Tutu’s “rainbow nation of God” in the heady days that followed the first democratic elections for all in SA in 1994.Parliamentary sovereignty has been consigned to the scrapheap of history in SA and the supremacy of our Constitution prevails in its place.
Laws or conduct inconsistent with the Constitution are invalid, as government will shortly find, yet again, when the constitutionality of the new electoral dispensation allowing independent candidates to stand for election at provincial and national levels is tested in court.
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Politicians are no longer at large to do as they please, they have to paint inside the lines drawn by the Constitution. It demands openness, accountability and responsiveness in government. It requires the state to respect, protect, promote and fulfil all of the many human rights guaranteed to all in the Bill of Rights, in particular a free press. It prescribes an impartial judiciary able to dispense justice without fear, favour or prejudice. It constrains all public spending on goods and services to a system which is fair, equitable, transparent, cost-effective and competitive. The values and principles which inform the public administration and the conduct of state owned enterprises are enumerated in section 195 of the Constitution. The most important of these are:
- A high standard of professional ethics must be promoted and maintained
- Efficient, economic and effective use of resources must also be promoted and maintained in the public administration
- People’s needs must be responded to
- Public administration must be accountable
- Transparency must be fostered by providing the public with timely, accessible and accurate information
The Constitution and the rule of law are both regarded as supreme in Chapter 1 which sets the values of human dignity, the promotion of the achievement of equality, and the enjoyment of freedom in stone.
On the other hand democratic centralism, as it is understood by president Ramaphosa, involves a meeting in a back-room at Luthuli House where all important decisions and taken for implementation by the loyal cadres of the National Democratic Revolution to whom they cascade down from “the centre of power”. This notion informs the ideology of the governing alliance in SA and that of the EFF. No other political parties support the NDR and some in the leadership of the ANC think it should be scrapped. That would be anathema to the SA Communist Party and its allies in the trade union known as COSATU. The presidential aim of unifying these alliance partners make it seem unlikely that the NDR will be abandoned soon, even if the practice of cadre deployment in the state is struck down as invalid in court for being illegal and unconstitutional, as it should be.
When he gave evidence at the Zondo Commission of Inquiry, Ramaphosa was at pains to explain the attachment of the ANC to democratic centralism to a gob-smacked deputy chief justice, sworn as he is to uphold the law and the Constitution, in which democratic centralism gets no mention at all.
According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary democratic centralism is “a principle of Communist party organization by which members take part in policy discussions and elections at all levels but must follow decisions made at higher levels.”
In the ANC the highest level of decision-making between conferences takes place in the National Executive Committee, its decisions cascade down to lower levels and permeate decisions in government due to the loyalty of cadres appointed there to the NDR and its striving for hegemonic control of all the levers of power in society.
The NDR is, in its essence, wholly inconsistent with the Constitution, a topic for another day, one already discussed here https://accountabilitynow.org.za/?s=25+years+after.
The question of whether the Constitution will prevail over the NDR and its democratic centralism is at the heart of the future of SA. If those aligned to the NDR, being the SACP, COSATU, the EFF and the ANC manage to amass more than 50% of the seats in the National Assembly from the voters who choose to vote in 2024, it is logical to expect the revolution to be advanced, with the customary “dexterity in tact” (as the cadres put it) at the expense of the constitutional values that inform the Constitution. Those in politics who subscribe to the NDR will take the revolution to the radical economic transformation stage which will put the economy of SA to the sword of revolutionary zeal. The tactful revolutionaries may prevail to continue to avoid killing the goose that lays the golden economic eggs for SA.
It is up to the electorate to decide whether to support democratic centralism or constitutionalism.
Should the revolutionaries win by a narrow margin, which, if it happens at all, seems a possible outcome in 2024, that does not imply hegemonic victory for the revolutionary forces at play in SA politics. The Constitution jealously guards its core values. It requires special majorities in parliament before it can be amended. So, for example, any amendment to the Bill of Rights (think: expropriation without compensation) requires a majority of 66% while tinkering with the foundational values set out in Chapter One of the Constitution such as fealty to the rule of law, requires a 75% majority. At present the governing alliance has only 57% of the votes in the National Assembly. It was unable to achieve consensus with the EFF on the expropriation without compensation bill that would have seen rights under section 25 of the Bill of Rights diluted.
There is a slight possibility that win or lose in 2024, the NDR aligned forces will simply tear up the Constitution and put in place the truly communist type of constitutional order that still prevails in China, North Korea, Venezuela, Cuba and Zimbabwe. Lest we forget, Robert Mugabe stole an election in Zimbabwe and led his country to ruin with his version of democratic centralism. The quiet diplomacy and support of SA aided and abetted the ruin of Zimbabwe where today a subsistence economy has replaced the “breadbasket of Africa” that Mugabe took over in 1980. The electorate of SA has experienced the fallout of the Zimbabwean meltdown. It ought not to wish a similar fate on SA.
In geo-politics, the multipolar world that has now emerged, after the fall of the Berlin wall, will inform the future of SA. At present we trade with the west, enjoy privileged status with the USA in our economic relations and in its support for the healthcare of those suffering from HIV-AIDS in SA. We are, on the other hand, also members of the BRICS grouping and profess to be non-aligned in the strife in Ukraine (while also appearing to be on Russia’s side in that conflict). While our trade with China is still small, it is growing. If Cold War II, at present in its infancy, morphs into World War III, the ideology of the NDR would push SA into the waiting arms of China and Russia, our BRICS partners, while the security concerns of NATO will act as a counter to cosying up to China. The geographical situation of SA and its natural and mineral wealth are seen as strategic assets worldwide both in peacetime and wartime.
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In short, the value system of the Constitution turns SA westwards while that of the NDR turns SA eastwards.
If the “moon-shot coalition” contests and prevails in the 2024 elections the orientation of SA will turn westward, our dalliance with Russia in the Ukraine war will end and it will be made more difficult for China’s neo-colonialism in this neck of the international woods. The NDR will land on the scrapheap of history and constitutional democracy under the rule of law will prevail, unless a real “shooting war” revolution is fomented as a response to the loss of voter support by those attached to the NDR ideology.
The voters of SA have an awesome responsibility when casting their votes in 2024. It may be the last time that they can meaningfully do so. Failure to vote would be an awful waste, given the sacrifices that were made to get it.
*Paul Hoffman SC is a director of Accountability Now
