A coincidence on a portentous anniversary is perhaps the briefest way to describe two events that took place in SA on 11 November 2026.
Each year for the last five years, the FW de Klerk Foundation has marked the anniversary of the death of its founder on 11 November 2021 with a memorial lecture in his honour. This year that lecture was delivered in Cape Town by Dr Mathews Phosa, the first premier of the then new province of Mpumalanga between 1994 and 1999, on the topic “The Enduring Promise of Constitutional Democracy.” The text of the lecture was published on the Daily Friend yesterday.
On the same day, the head of the AfriForum Institute for Federalism, Dr Martin van Staden, speaking at the AfriForum Theatre in Pretoria, delivered a public lecture on the theme “Federalism and Federation in South Africa”, which has been published by Politicsweb.
Van Staden contends that SA is already constitutionally a federation, despite the perception that the country is a unitary state. (A perception that is possibly based on the opening words of section 1 of the Constitution: “The Republic of South Africa is one, sovereign, democratic state founded on the following values…”.) The long list of values that follows does not include any reference to federalism.
It is useful for those interested in the history of SA and its politics, good governance and accountability to contrast the ideas put forward by the two learned gentlemen, each promoting his own perspective on both the history and the future of SA. Both lectures commend themselves for careful consideration, informed debate and, who knows, implementation of reforms that have the potential to enhance progress towards peace and prosperity for all who live in SA.
Phosa has experienced the transition to constitutional democracy in SA from many vantage points: as an activist, lawyer, negotiator, political leader (both as Premier of his province of birth and as Treasurer General of the ANC in the first Zuma administration from 2007 to 2012), as a poet who writes in Afrikaans (one of his nine languages), businessman and author of a memoir: Witness to Power: a Political Memoir.
Van Staden, according to his website:
“[I]s a South African author and jurist in the tradition of classical liberalism or libertarianism.
He is the founding and present Head of the AfriForum Institute for Federalism. Between 2023 and 2026, he served as the Head of Policy at the Free Market Foundation, where he is now a Special Advisor. Martin has held an earned Doctor of Laws (LL.D.) degree from the University of Pretoria since 2026, where he also obtained his Master of Laws (LL.M.) cum laude in 2021. He obtained both degrees under the postgraduate supervision of Professor Emeritus Koos Malan.”
One of the units within the FW de Klerk Foundation is the Centre for the Constitutional Transformation of SA.
Astute
The unit was astute, in its blurb distributed at the Phosa lecture, to draw attention to a quotable Nelson Mandela observation dated 10 December 1993:
“At the southern tip of the continent of Africa a rich reward is in the making, an invaluable gift is in the preparation, for those who suffered in the name of all humanity when they sacrificed everything for liberty, peace, human dignity and human fulfilment”.
The aim of Van Staden’s lecture is obviously to stimulate thought and discussion around creating a federal dispensation for SA. Phosa advocated interesting ideas such as the reduction of the number of provinces in SA. (He pointed out that in the old SA there were only four, not the current nine). He considers that the national cabinet should be limited to 15 or 16 cabinet ministers and deprecates the use of “blue light convoys” by self-important politicians.
He would like to see the president elected by the people (and removed by them) in preference to the current position, which gives that power to elected politicians who find themselves in the National Assembly after elections are held at constituency level ever five years. This point drew applause from about half of his audience.
Clearly, Phosa does not regard the Constitution as a document written in stone. On the contrary, he sees it as the product of a hard-fought compromise between the political forces at play in the early to mid-nineties of the previous century.
One of the main protagonists, the National Party, no longer exists, and the ANC itself has shed both leaders and members to the UDM, the EFF and MKP. In addition, the ANC lost the support of its tripartite alliance ally, the SACP, which stood against it for the first time in the local government elections held on 4 November 2026, and did surprisingly well for a first-time contender.
The proverbial drol in die drinkwater, systemic corruption, did not receive detailed attention in either lecture, more’s the pity. One in three members of the workforce of SA is unemployed at present, an unacceptably high number. Jobs are few and far-between because of the dampening effect of endemic grand corruption. It stifles business confidence in SA, without which the necessary new investments in commercial activity are not made for fear of the loss of capital ventured on them.
Proper context
Van Staden is well-placed to put federalism in its proper context. He points to the USA as a good example of the success of federalism over the past two and a half centuries. He also goes into the history of the concept over the centuries.
It is perhaps a good time to consider alternative ways of making SA the country Nelson Mandela pointed towards in 1993. This worthy goal may be achieved by refreshing the ideas and ideals that inform our constitutional democracy under the rule of law.
Certainly, at present too much power is concentrated in the presidency. The provinces are dysfunctional, perhaps by design, and corruption is out of control, as the evidence pouring forth at the Madlanga Commission amply demonstrates.
[Image: by ESBProfessional]
The views of the writer are not necessarily the views of the Daily Friend or the IRR.
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