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Constitutional Engineering and Economic Recolonization in South Africa

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 May 2019

Heribert Adam
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Extract

On November 2, 1983, white voters in South Africa decided by a two-thirds majority in a nation-wide referendum to approve a new South African constitution. The new political dispensation still excludes the 70 percent African population from participation in central political decision making but includes symbolically the 10 percent so-called coloureds and 3 percent Indians in separate Parliaments. White control has been streamlined into a more technocratic, expanded executive state with greater powers for the ruling Nationalist Party and the office of the state president. The “coloureds” and Indians now play the minor role of educating whites in non-racialism.

Type
Insight
Information
African Issues , Volume 13 , 1984 , pp. 30 - 34
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 1984 

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References

Notes

I am indebted to the SSHRC of Canada for a Research Grant and to Kogila Moodley for criticism.

1 The influential Johannesburg Sunday Times and Financial Mail, for example, backed a yes vote while the Durban Sunday Tribune and the Cape Times owned by the same group, advocated a rejection of the proposals. The Afrikaans press, as well as the government-controlled radio and TV, of course were unequivocal in their stance. This despite the large ultra-right opposition in Afrikaner ranks, comprising up to 40 percent of the total Afrikaner vote, particularly in the most populous Transvaal.

2 So Johan van der Vyver, leading human rights advocate and law professor at the liberal University of Witwatersrand, in Sunday Times, October 16, 1983. Similarly, Alan Paton earlier, who retracted after severe criticism by his liberal friends.

3 So Gavin Relly, Chairman of Anglo-American, Sunday Tribune, October 9, 1983.

4 A point stressed by John Dugard, Sunday Times, October 16, 1983.

5 For a popularized survey of the arguments of all political parties, including the black groups, see: [no author]. Yes, No—Your Guide to the New Constitution, n.d. (Lange-Lucas Publishing, 140 Oxford Road, 140 Melrose, Johannesburg). The hundred-page booklet ends with an excellent overview by Hermann Giliomee of the history and interests behind the various white factions. In another article (“The English in Disarray,” Eastern Province Herald, September 6, 1983), Giliomee describes the reluctance of the English-speaking establishment to make up its mind publicly. This initial confusion, however, has given way to numerous individual partisan announcements by leading English speakers, mostly in support of the constitution.

6 So Marinus Wiechers, Sunday Times, October 9, 1983. Wiechers, a law professor at UNISA, was also a member of the Buthelezi Commission.