South Africa: Entering the post-mandela era

Journal of Democracy

Volumn 10, Issue 4, 1999, Pages

  Friedman, Steven ^a  

^a Director of the Centre for Policy Studies   (South Africa)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 0040782420     PISSN: 10455736     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1353/jod.1999.0063     Document Type: Review

References (15)

1. See, for example, Donald Horowitz, A Democratic South Africa?: Constitutional Engineering in a Divided Society (Cape Town: Oxford University Press, 1991); Hermann Giliomee, "The Communal Nature of the South African Conflict," in Hermann Giliomee and Lawrence Schlemmer, eds., Negotiating South Africa's Future (New York: St. Martin's, 1989).
2. See, for example, Donald Horowitz, A Democratic South Africa?: Constitutional Engineering in a Divided Society (Cape Town: Oxford University Press, 1991); Hermann Giliomee, "The Communal Nature of the South African Conflict," in Hermann Giliomee and Lawrence Schlemmer, eds., Negotiating South Africa's Future (New York: St. Martin's, 1989).
3. The 1993 Constitution mandated multiparty government, assigning parties one cabinet seat for each 5 percent of the vote gained. Steven Friedman and Doreen Atkinson, eds., The Small Miracle: South Africa's Negotiated Settlement (Johannesburg: Ravan, 1995).
4. Legislation enacted since 1994 entitles all parliamentary parties to a share of public funds for their campaigns. The UDM had no seats before 1999 and thus was not eligible.
5. The DP fared well in conservative white areas. Perhaps most important symbolically was its victory in the town of Ventersdorp, home of the leader of the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging (Afrikaner Resistance Movement). As a result, while the Freedom Front (the only right-wing party to contest the election that year) won more than 2 percent of the vote in 1994, it could only manage 0.8 percent in 1999, while the Afrikaner Eenheidsbeweging (Afrikaner Unity Movement) won only 0.3 percent.
6. Ian Smith, the prime minister of Rhodesia when it unilaterally declared independence from Britain in 1965 in protest at the colonial power's perceived sympathy to black interests, rejected several attempts at a compromise settlement and was ultimately forced, in 1979, to capitulate to majority rule when all other options were exhausted.
7. The most extreme claim is that of Adam Przeworski: "No country in which a party wins 60 percent of the vote twice in a row is a democracy." See Przeworski, Democracy and the Market: Political and Economic Reforms in Eastern Europe and Latin America (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 95.
8. For this argument, see Steven Friedman, "No Easy Stroll to Dominance: Party Dominance, Opposition and Civil Society in South Africa," in Hermann Giliomee and Charles Simkins, eds., The Awkward Embrace: One-Party Domination and Democracy (Amsterdam: Harwood Academic Publishers, 1999), 97-126.
9. Examples of politicians who have moved into business after losing favor include Cyril Ramaphosa, former chief negotiator and general secretary of the ANC; Tokyo Sexwale, former premier of Gauteng province; and Mathews Phosa, former premier of Mpumalanga.
10. One sign is the appointment by the national ANC of three provincial premiers who do not enjoy the confidence of their provincial parties. Mbeki has also consolidated the powers of the presidency and scaled down those of the deputy president, who will now operate from the same office and use the same staff as the president. The expansion of the staff of the Office of the Presidency also suggests that policy making will not be the sole preserve of ministers.
11. Thabo Mbeki, Statement at the Opening of the Debate in the National Assembly on "Reconciliation and Nation Building," Cape Town, 29 May 1998.
12. Dani Rodrik, The New Global Economy and Developing Countries (Washington, D.C.: Overseas Development Council, 1999).
13. Centre for Policy Studies/National Business Initiative, Quarterly Trends (January 1999). Contribution by Louise Stack, Synopsis (Johannesburg: Centre for Policy Studies, forthcoming).
14. Centre for Policy Studies/National Business Initiative, Quarterly Trends (January 1999). Contribution by Louise Stack, Synopsis (Johannesburg: Centre for Policy Studies, forthcoming).
15. Human Sciences Research Council survey reported in Sowetan (Johannesburg), 13 May 1999.