Chris Louw
ANC attempts to shift the balance of power in parliament away from the cabinet would be fought by the National Party and could end up in the Constitutional Court, a senior NP MP warned this week.
The Weekly Mail & Guardian reported last week that the ANC caucus was shifting parliamentary power to the standing committees and away from the cabinet of national unity. This was leaving the NP high and dry, since the ANC was much more powerful in the committees.
This week the ANC caucus was circulating a diagram of how they saw parliament working –making it clear that they had a radically different view from the NP’s traditional top-down one.
The graph, used by MP Salie Manie, explains how civil society will contribute to an informal ANC study-group structure, which in turn will inform ANC members in the parliamentary standing committees. The powers of the standing committees will soon be increased, allowing members to make a direct input on all legislative decisions.
The standing committees represent all parties in parliament, with the ANC in the majority. No provision is made in the transitional constitution binding committees to consensus decision- making in the way that cabinet functioning is prescribed.
ANC backbenchers, accused of rebelling against cabinet decisions, are genuinely perplexed by newspaper reports alluding to conflict between the executive and the party caucus.
“Cabinet ministers are no different from ordinary caucus members,” says Manie. “The way we work in the ANC is the democratic way. People at the top cannot take unilateral decisions. We have a culture that provides for the need to consult, of drawing in people from the bottom. Cabinet members come from that same ANC. They’re not a different entity.”
But the NP believes the cabinet is where power resides — and it is the task of ministers to “sell” to their caucuses decisions taken at cabinet level.
Parliament cannot govern a country, Fanus Schoeman, executive director of the NP’s federal council, said this week. He warned that plans by the ANC caucus to shift power away from the cabinet to the ANC-dominated standing committees could lead to the NP reverting to the Constitutional Court.
If a real conflict does develop, Schoeman said, the NP trusted that President Nelson Mandela will refuse to sign legislation into law if it is changed by the ANC caucus. “Mandela is the president of the country, not only of the ANC. And he will be part of decisions taken at cabinet level.”
Schoeman said he was aware of moves in the ANC caucus to stamp its authority on parliament. It is quite possible for the ANC to bring about amendments or introduce legislation, he admitted.
However, the NP believed that Mandela, “as president of the country”, would not sign legislation if it changes decisions taken at cabinet level, where the NP has a say out of proportion with its numbers. “If legislation is changed flagrantly by the caucus, our first resort will be the Constitutional Court. It must be remembered that parliament is not the highest authority anymore — the constitution is.”
The NP, Schoeman said, had a “culture” that differed from that of the ANC. “We talk things out in our caucus, and guys who are not happy with decisions taken by the majority abide by the majority decision. That is democracy. We don’t take positions outside our caucus that do not reflect the caucus position.”