As the final constitutional deadline draws closer, some rights remain unresolved, write Gaye Davis and Justin Pearce
Exhausted constitutional negotiators kept smiling — sometimes grimly – — this week, saying they were on track to meet the May 8 deadline for the adoption of the final Constitution.
But the happy faces barely concealed the reality that the African National Congress and the National Party have finally reached the point of no more compromise on two emotionally-charged issues: single-language schools, and the right of employers to lock out striking workers. Property and language rights have also still to be resolved.
Multilateral talks between the parties continued, with the possibility that parties would submit negotiated amendments, rather than single-party proposals, to save time. While there was speculation that trade-offs could break the logjam, none of the parties was saying so for fear of losing a bargaining position.
But in a week largely occupied with technicalities and the consolidation of progress made in previous weeks, neither party budged over education and the lock-out, and no more than lip-service was paid to the “spirit of give and take” which has been heralded as the secret ingredient of the progress made in recent months.
For the ANC, the NP demands for the lock-out and single-language schools resonate with the bitter struggles around labour and education in the Seventies and Eighties. For the NP the demands meet an obligation to two crucial constituencies: business, and conservative Afrikanerdom.
ANC negotiator Blade Nzimande sounded despondent about progress on the education clause. “There has been no progress on this issue in the last six months,” he said. The solution to the issue would be a formulation of the clause which will allow for the existence of some Afrikaans schools while giving the ANC the guarantee that such schools would not be racially exclusive, yet such a formulation has so far proved elusive.
The NP’s Peter Marais said he was “hopeful” about the resolution of the education issue and that it was “a difficult one, because of its emotional content”. The Democratic Party has proposed a model which would give a maximum amount of control to the parent body in the running of schools, while maintaining constitutional guarantees against racial exclusivity.
Cosatu representatives were meeting with NP negotiators on Thursday over the lock-out clause. Cosatu and the ANC are standing firm on permitting a compromise in legislation, but not in the Constitution; the NP is resolute it wants constitutional guarantees on the lock-out, education and language issues.
ANC negotiators stuck to the position that the right of businesses to lock out striking workers is not one which is normally entrenched in a Constitution. They are also hopeful that while the NP’s position on the lock-out will please the business constituency, it will alienate another important part of the NP support base, the coloured working class, only weeks before the municipal elections in the Western Cape, and that this could cause the NP to buckle on the issue.
At a meeting of the Constitutional Assembly’s management committee on Thursday it was decided a flexible approach would apply to tabling amendments. Constitutional Assembly representative Katherine McKenzie said while the deadline was set for noon on Thursday, more amendments were expected the next day.
With the first reading of the Constitution Bill approved in the full Constitutional Assembly on Wednesday night, the Constitutional Committee was set to start considering amendments at 2pm Thursday and would continue from 9am Friday. Another meeting was scheduled for Monday, McKenzie said.
From Tuesday, technical advisers working with the various parties would work on refining the Bill, which would be tabled before a full sitting of the Constitutional Assembly on May 6. Any changes could be dealt with in committee, she said. The deadline of May 8 for the adoption of the Constitution still stood, she said.