Backlash against compromise?
FOR the black majority in South Africa the scope of the compromises made during three years of negotiations will mean that next years proposed elections will be more symbolic of Uhuru than delivering real power to transform society. Perhaps this is why the major trade union federation, COSATU, has called for a general strike in mid-November to
International Viewpoint #250 November 1993 versial decisions which the majority party might want to pass. The implication is also that the interim constitution which will have been negotiated in the Multi-party Forum where no-one has been elected, will be adopted, perhaps with minor oppose some of the deals that are emerging from negotiations. MARK HARPER — Cape Town, 22 October 1993
N Friday 15 October the Nobel Committee awarded the 1993 Peace prize to Nelson Mandela and FW de Klerk - a measure of the satisfaction felt by the main Western powers with the course of the negotiations and their confidence that these two leaders will continue to make the necessary concessions to ensure that the non-racial election, planned for 27 April next year, can appropriately crown the process.
The peace prize award comes in the wake of the passing by the white Parliament of four laws that make provision for the setting up of the Transitional Executive Council, an Independent Electoral Commission, the Independent Media Commission and the Independent Broadcasting Authority. For the African National Congress (ANC), and its president, this signalled that the transition from apartheid was now irreversible. Immediately, as if by unwritten agreement Mandela went to the United Nations calling for an end to all non-nuclear and military sanctions.
These laws will come into effect after the interim constitution and a Bill of Rights has been adopted by negotiators and passed by another session of Parliament.
Yet the response of the mass movement has been mooted. There has been no real sign of enthusiasm for what has been achieved so far — although the only substantial opposition to the agreements has come from the rightwing.
The process has been going now for more than three years. Apart from when dramatic crisis occur, information on what is being discussed, what has been agreed and the implications of these agreements is so scant that the vast majority are blissfully ignorant of what is taking place.
It is worth quoting David Welsh, a leading liberal political scientist and a very strong advocate of the negotiation process. In the Cape Times of 7 October 1993 he says: "It is also a remarkable anomaly that debates of the Negotiating Forum are not published in the form of a Hansard (parliamentary recordings of proceedings). Major legislation is about to be rushed through Parliament without the general public having had an adequate opportunity to scrutinise bills and debate major issues. Like CODESA, the Multi-party Forum is in danger of becoming an exclusive club. This bodes ill for the style of government we can expect in future."
What the oppressed masses know is what they experience: continuing violence, economic hardship and rapid decay of the social fabric of ghetto life.
### Principles
What is not so well known is that the so-called constituent assembly (CA) that will be brought into being by the 27 April election will be bound by no less than twenty seven constitutional principles drawn up during the negotiations! All decisions which the CA wishes to make will be evaluated by a constitutional court to ensure that it does not conflict with the letter and spirit of these principles. Whilst the constitutional court has not been established it is clear that the vast majority will be former Supreme Court judges and members of the legal Bar. In other words, people not very sensitive to the needs and interests of black workers or the rural poor.
The interim constitution which will operate during the sitting of the CA and the adoption of a new constitution requires specially enlarged majorities. It is likely therefore, that smaller parties will block together and impose vetoes on any controchanges as the final constitution for the country.
Thus the negotiating process will have stripped the CA of its sovereignty making it resemble a constituent assembly only in form but without the content.
It has also been agreed that there will be a "government of national unity" for at least the first five years following the April election. All parties obtaining more than five percent in the election will be represented in this government. Even if the ANC and its allies were to win the election outright they could face considerable obstacles to pursuing their own policies where these are not expressly blocked by the adopted constitutional principles. It means that the National Party, the far right and Buthulezi's Inkatha Freedom Party will be able to obstruct any progressive social programmes that an ANC government might want to implement.3
The interim constitution will contain elements of federalism and regionalism. Initially, commentators felt that the desire by the National Party for strong federal and regional government was a further attempt to restrict the powers of the CA and exact a minority veto in a different
Yet the proposals on regional government surprisingly do not make huge inroads into the powers of central government. Their powers, in fact, do not go much beyond the powers of the former white Provincial Councils.
Those areas where the regional government has exclusive power concerns rather trivial issues such as tourism, town planning and so forth. On issues such as housing, education, agriculture, policing the centre and the regions are to be given concurrent power. Where there is conflict the centre will prevail.
1. Uhuru is an African word meaning freedom.
2. The Bill of Rights is meant to be the fundamental base for the protection of human rights without discrimination. It also deals with property rights.
3. The Inkatha Freedom party exercises strict control over the bantustan, Kwazulu. It is a conservative and reactionary force that allows a privileged layer of the Zulu people to exploit the socio-economic advantages of apartheid.
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International Viewpoint #250 November 1993
The danger with the agreement reached so far on regional government is the extent to which the regional boundaries may correspond with ethnic interests and designs. Provision has been made for nine regions: Western Cape, Northern Cape, Eastern Cape, Natal, PWV (Pretoria, Witwatersrand, Vereeniging), North West, Orange Free State, Northern Transvaal,
Negotiations are continuing on the regional boundaries and the powers of the regions and de Klerk has promised Buthelezi that he will push harder to ensure strong decentralised regional government. This could provide a means to get Buthelezi back in the negotiations and a way of satisfying demands of some members of his cabinet for closer relations with Inkatha. The National Party will probably only pursue the strong regional option if there is movement by Inkatha towards them at an electoral level. Up to now de Klerk has been quite prepared to sacrifice federal solutions at the altar of power-sharing with
Like the demand for a constituent assembly the ANC's original demand for an interim government has had its content watered down. The interim government was intended to replace the Nationalist government in the period leading up to democratic elections. While its primary task was to "level the playing field", that is, to ensure conditions of free political activity and to foresee that no political party was privileged by means of its influence over broadcasting and the media, nevertheless it was conceived to rule the country for the interim period.
The Transitional Executive Council (TEC), while it pre-figures the power-sharing arrangement that will be ushered in after the elections, does not replace the National Party government or the present cabinet. Its role is restricted, in the main, to monitoring the government and operating alongside the existing cabinet. The TEC will be made up of one representative of each party that has been part of the negotiating process and is willing to submit to
So, while the Pan African Congress has been actively participating in the negotiations and supported the setting up of the TEC, it will not be represented in the TEC or any of its sub-councils because it refuses to submit its armed wing, the Azanian Peoples' Liberation Army (APLA), to monitoring by the TEC sub-council on
TEC decisions require a seventy-five percent agreement. However, three of its seven sub-councils: Defence, Intelligence and Law & Order will have eight mem26 bers and any decision must be agreed by eighty percent of the members. This means that 6.4 members are needed to enforce a decision. Since the National Party will be represented by at least one member it has virtually a veto power in these sub-councils. In the case of de Klerk calling a state of emergency for example, a vote of eighty percent will be needed to rescind the decision.
Thus the TEC falls far short of the interim government demanded by the ANC at the start of the negotiations. Nevertheless, a certain level of power-sharing will occur in the TEC. In most cases the government will be loath to bludgeon through decisions for fear of alienating the ANC and other parties. Even before the advent of the TEC the government has been consulting the ANC on many important decisions and in some cases it would actively seek out the support of the ANC.
"Unrest areas"
One recent example was when the regime declared certain areas of the East Rand in the Transvaal "unrest areas" and sent in the military to quell the level of violence. De Klerk first obtained the support of Mandela before undertaking this course of action. It was only when Mandela came under fire from rank and file activists in the affected townships who were bearing the brunt of South African Defence Force (SADF) repression that he attempted to distance himself from deployment of the SADF.
The most recent and most significant joint Government and ANC initiative has been over the rescheduling of its debt and the application to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for a $850 million loan purportedly for drought relief but in reality destined for debt servicing. A joint delegation including government and high-ranking ANC officials negotiated the debt rescheduling deal and jointly put the IMF loan proposal together.
On the other hand there have been two recent cases where the government has ignored the opposition of the ANC and other sections of the popular movement and forced through its decisions. In the first case the government went against a decision of the National Economic Forum which proposed that the seven percent increase in the price of petrol be postponed till December when it should be reviewed. The government, although under the threat of mass action, confirmed the increase. In the second case the government awarded contracts for the production of cellular telephones unilaterally. This was strongly opposed by the ANC and the Congress of
South African Trade Unions (COSATU) who wanted the issue determined by the TEC.
A further example of the government's continuing authority was its decision to raid a civilian house in Umtata which was alleged to be a APLA base killing two children and three youths.
Negotiations are proceeding in spite of the withdrawal of the rightwing parties. Inkatha walked out of the negotiations in June in protest at the decision making mechanisms that set the 27 April election date. The Conservative Party and the Affrikaner Volksfront, an alliance of rightwing organisations also no longer take part in the Kempton Park negotiations. The walk out by the homeland government's of Bophuthatswana and the Ciskei has subsequently given rise to a new alliance on the right called the Freedom Alliance which includes all these parties.
Given the desire by both the government and the ANC to get broad endorsement for the negotiated settlement and so avoid a crisis of legitimacy after the elections, the proposals made at Kempton Park are canvassed with the Freedom Alliance. It seems that this two-table process of negotiations will gather momentum with talks continuing at Kempton Park while the Alliance is addressed separately in bila-
While de Klerk is keen to get Buthelezi's Inkatha party back inside the negotiating circle, having the Freedom Alliance on the outside threatening civil war is proving a useful lever for extracting further concession from the ANC.
The low intensity war continues to reap an average daily death toll of eighteen. In August three-hundred and fifty people were killed in the small area that makes up Katlehong, Thokoza and Vosloorus.
While the centre of the violence is now located on the East Rand it has by no means abated in Natal with the 1990 levels remaining fairly consistent.
A shift has also taken place in the directors of the low intensity war. While it was obvious that the National Party government put in place the strategy of low intensity war to weaken the mass movement it now seems that they have lost control over their own creation. What is happening now is that those rightwing forces based in the security apparatus are
4. The PAC originates in a split from the ANC towards the end of the 1950s. It has grown in the recent past through a radical stance against the negotiations. It is in reality divided on the question.
5. The National Economic Forum has been set up by the unions and the goverment to negotiate economic restructuring and post-apartheid economic policy.
International Viewpoint #250 November 1993 continuing the low intensity strategy more or less independently.
Both the National Party and the ANC realise that there will be only limited foreign investment and economic recovery while the levels of violence remain so high and are both desperate to bring the violence under control.
Mandela told the World Economic Development Congress recently that the high levels of violence would deter investors and that the ANC's first priority was to curtail the unrest. This has meant endorsing security operations in the East Rand townships and cooperating with the security forces. Ironically, the police and army directed its intervention at the support base of the mass movement: the self-defence units and ANC strongholds.
The levels of violence which pre-figures more intensive civil war possibilities has pressurised the ANC to make deals to the advantage of the white estab-
One such deal has been the agreement reached at the Multi-party negotiations that all civil servants will keep their jobs after the 27 April election. The job guarantee will apply to all departments including those in the TBVC (Transkei, Bophuthatswana, Venda and Ciskei) and the "selfgoverning" territories. Supposedly to soften the response from the mass movement a policy of affirmative action is to be implemented to ensure more black people are incorporated into the civil service. It was also agreed that a guaranteed "no vendetta" clause against civil servants will be written into the interim constitution.
This deal has its origins in Communist Party (SACP) Chair, Joe Slovo's document on Sunset Clauses in which he argued that the ANC and the SACP must be prepared to make significant compromises with the regime to avoid a bitter civil war.
Not long after the ink had dried on the civil servants agreement the new COSATU Central Executive Committee announced it was planning a general strike for 15 November to oppose this agreement and a further agreement by which employers will have the right to lock out workers guaranteed in the Bill of Rights. This took the ANC and the SACP leadership totally by surprise as they were party to the agreement and opposed to the COSATU action. Hastily convened meetings between these three organisations has not resolved the issue. However, Trevor Manuel, head of the ANC's Economic Department warned that the planned strike would be as disastrous as Umtata raid was for attracting foreign investors to South Africa.
The constituent assembly stripped of its sovereignty, an interim government which in the last instance will not be much more than an advisory or consultative body, the five year power-sharing arrangement, the deal on the civil service are all products of the particular balance of class forces in
In previous issues of International Viewpoint there has been occasion to review the balance of forces in South Africa. We shall not repeat that here. Suffice it to say that the fall of the Stalinist regimes in Eastern Europe and the exhaustion of the uprising during the 1984-1987 period has conspired to produce a negative and even defeatist perspective amongst ANC and SACP leaders where a historic compromise with the Nationalist regime under which the machinery of the state will remain in the hands of conservative Afrikaners and economic power in the hands of the monopolies is seen as unavoidable.
### Profound optimism
For many followers of the South African political situation there was a profound optimism about the prospects for radical solutions to the conflict. Even in the midst of the dark days of the PW Botha era of repression the solidarity movements all over the world were inspired by the breadth, combativity and socialist rhetoric of the workers movement.
Today the story is very different. As the designated date, 27 April, for non-racial democratic elections approaches the political perspectives articulated in the popular movement is dominated by the notion that there is no alternative to capitalism. The perspective of reforming South African capitalism and the sharing of political power with the white ruling class has become the dominant position on the left.
Nowhere was this more clearly expressed than at the recent Special COSATU Congress which was held over 10-12 September. This Congress had to spell out COSATU's election position and to draw up a reconstruction programme. Unlike previous COSATU congresses which were characterised by vigorous debate this Congress was carefully managed to create an image of maximum unity.
The Congress elected twenty members to the AN election list for the National the nine regional lists. Most debate at Congress was spent on this aspect of the agenda.
The ANC had promised that the COSATU nominees would appear in the top fifty-one percent of both the national and regional election lists, thereby almost guaranteeing them a place in Parliament. The list includes such people as Jay Naidoo, COSATU's former General Secretary; Moses Mayekiso, General Secretary of the metalworkers union NUMSA; Alec Erwin, NUMSA's education officer; John Copelyn, General Secretary of the clothing and textile union SACTWU; and Marcel Golding, assistant General Secretary of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM).6
It is interesting to note the tensions that have arisen between COSATU and the ANC since attempts are union being made to back away from placing all COSATU nominees in the top half of the list.
Difficult as it has been, COSATU has established no means to hold their nominees to the ANC list accountable to the organisation. They will operate on an ANC mandate and there is no way that COSATU can hold them answerable for their parliamentary performance.
6. Moses Mayekiso and Alec Erwin are two of the most longstanding and principled leaders of the independent socialist and union left. John Copelyn was in the past also associated with this current before moving towards positions that favoured worker-management collaboration. Marcel Golding too was also a supporter of the union leftin the mineworkers union - and opposed to the ANC and SACP.
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International Viewpoint #250 November 1993
Sam Shilowa has been elected to replace Jay Naidoo as the new COSATU General Secretary. Since the federation's 1991 Congress he has served as the assistant General Secretary. he is seen as one of COSATU's worker leaders who has risen up through the ranks. He is also on the SACP's Central Committee and is regarded as being loyal to the main line of the Party.
Understanding the pressures that an elected government will come under, COSATU workers wanted to tie the ANC to a radical social and economic programme in return for their backing in the election. Thus the idea for the "Reconstruction Accord" was born.
### ANC policy
Yet when reading through the latest draft, presented to delegates for the first time when they arrived at Congress, there is not one clause which is not already ANC policy. As a recent article in the South African Labour Bulletin sarcastically pointed out: "Apparently COSATU was trying to bind the ANC to the ANC's own policy."
The shift from strong socialist positions to one where no alternative is seen as possible other than committing the federation to the reconstruction of post-apartheid capitalism is captured boldly in the document. It mirrors the same shifts undertaken by the ANC and the SACP.
The latest draft, for example, says: "Macro economic stability is vital to the success of our programme. For this fundamental reason, coherent, strict and effective monetary and fiscal policies will be a cornerstone of our Reconstruction and Development Programme'."
Taken with a clause in an earlier draft, subsequently dropped, which said: "An accord also implies duties, obligations and possibly compromises on behalf of the trade union movement as well as the ANC, based on the realities, we face (...) the likelihood of wage restraint..."; and with the call in the most recent draft, "to redirect government expenditure within existing constraints", you get the impression that the authors from COSATU Head Office are converts to conservative monetarist economic policies.
The document abandons established COSATU policy, such as nationalisation of the commanding heights of the economy. The strong left shift in the NUMSA conference in July where the union adopted resolutions calling for nationalisation without compensation, the ending of the alliance with the ANC after the 27 April election and for the formation of a mass 28 workers party received no echo in the COSATU Congress.
This fourth draft of the "Reconstruction and Development Programme" was accepted by the Congress as a working document with some sections referred back for reworking. In addition resolutions were adopted on violence, constitutional negotiations, economic restructuring, tax and building working class unity.
To build working class unity it is proposed that a "workers summit" be held before April 1994 bringing together NACTU and the independent trade unions, and a "Conference of the left" be held consisting of working class organisations with a mass-based constituency in June 1994. This amends the 1991 Congress resolution which called for a "conference on socialism". Southscan, a weekly bulletin of Southern African affairs interprets this new version of the resolution as being aimed at excluding "a number of relatively small socialist organisations such as the far left Workers Organisation for Socialist Action (...) and other Trotskyist formations.")
The compromises and the shift to the right has not gone unchallenged. Opposition at the grassroots of the mass movement is growing even if it is not yet coordinated and coherent.
• The NUMSA Congress earlier this year represents a clear rank and file statement of their opposition to the ditching of radical working class positions. How this will find expression in the next few months is unclear as already there are indications of leadership elements trying to smother and deflect Congress decisions.
• The exasperation that is indicated by COSATU's call for a general strike on 15 November to oppose compromises made at the Negotiating Forum is another indication of growing unease with the settlement being constructed at Kempton
• The Police and Prisons Civil Rights Union (POPCRU) strike in the Eastern Cape where hundreds of black policemen and women are striking in solidarity with suspended black policemen and women further illustrates the continued combativity of the mass movement.
• Rural women's organisations have threatened to boycott the elections if the motion of the Western Cape Women's Coalition'° calling for the exclusion of rural women from the Bill of Rights for two years is accepted. Under the Bill of Rights presently being debated women of
"coloured" and "Indian" descent are granted equality but African women falling under customary law are excluded This means the majority of rural women would be excluded from the Bill of Rights clauses relating to equality.
Of course many traditional leaders are working hard to prevent rights being extended to African women. They fear it will interfere with hereditary chieftainship and property inheritance. This in turn would lead to challenges to the social position of men.
### Galling
• Dissatisfaction with the negotiating process is also expressed in the demand for affirmative action to Africanise the leadership structures of the ANC. As one ANC activist expressed it: "It seems galling that when we are demanding affirmative action as a policy for South Africa, we have not practiced it ourselves."
• Disenchantment with the political process is probably best illustrated in the ten day siege of the ANC's Southern Natal office by twenty-seven MK cadres. The protest was aimed at the way in which they have been forgotten and left to fend for themselves with no prospect of jobs, no financial assistance from the ANC and no involvement with the discussion on restructuring the defence force.
If space permitted many more examples can be cited. The challenge for socialist activists whether they are in the ANC, SACP or in independent organisations like WOSA is to find ways of relating to these impulses, to begin co-ordinating their efforts and organising themselves into rank and file currents that can start to challenging the dominance of reformist
It is unlikely that this will have gathered momentum in time to ensure co-ordinated election activities but is sure to gather momentum thereafter. *
7. Roger Etkind and Suzanna Harvey, 'Reconstruction Accord the Workers Cease Fire, South Africa Labour Bulletin.
8. NACTU is another union federation, smaller than COSATU and dominated by the PAC.