Roger Southall
A SECOND LOOK
Dr Mamphele Ramphele, former vice- chancellor of the University of Cape Town, recently faulted what she saw as the reluctance of intellectuals who identified with the liberation struggle to openly criticise what they considered mistakes or abuses by the African National Congress now that it is in power.
Writing in the Mail & Guardian (”When good people are silent”, December 10 to16 1999), she suggested their ”silences” were motivated by a fear that they would now be construed as being ”anti- liberation”.
She suggested that such loyalty was misplaced and counter-productive to the reali-sation of the liberation struggle’s objectives. What she did not say but which follows is that, when opposition parties offer robust criticism of the ANC, many intellectuals are reluctant to identify with these criticisms because they do not want to be seen as opponents of the government and do not wish to identify openly with those parties.
A result is that criticisms that may have wider support tend to become the public property of only the opposition parties. And the content of those criticisms is blurred by the hurly-burly of insult and half-truth that characterises party politics.
There is no easy way forward, especially in a still-racially polarised society where opposition is easily entangled with racial stereotyping and antagonisms. However, if we believe, with the English philosopher John Stuart Mill, that ”In all human affairs conflicting influences are required to keep one another alive and efficient even for their own proper uses,” then several arguments follow.
First, academics need to show a greater commitment to serious empirical research into the country’s new political institutions. Parties such as the Democratic Party may produce well-founded research. Yet their motivations and findings are always likely to be contested more on the basis of their authorship than upon their content.
The best academic research will state its value-basis openly and strive for ”independence” and rigour. And inter- party debate about how well (or otherwise) the constitutional checks and balances are doing in making government accountable needs to be informed by a body of clear and well-grounded study.
Unfortunately, there is an alarming lack of professional interest by our political scientists in such nitty-gritty areas as: the functioning of Parliament, the working of provincial legislatures, the performance and impact of the ”democracy supporting” commissions, the interface between the government and the civil service, and so on. Most such work is being done by monitoring organisations such as the Institute for Democracy in South Africa and the Black Sash.
Second, we need to combine our search for the conditions under which accountability can flourish in South Africa with a commitment to the legitimacy and vigour of constitutional opposition as a necessary ingredient in democracy. This need not commit us to the support of any party (even though we may choose to so align ourselves).
Yet we should firmly assert the positive functions of opposition or, if a different word is more acceptable, of a diversity of opinion. For, open opposition provides for the institutionalised expression of conflicting interests; the communication to the government of interests which might otherwise be disregarded; the improvement of performance by the government by criticism of mistakes, omissions and injustices; and the enlightenment of the public, and the improvement of its qualifications for approving or disapproving of the actions of its rulers.
Third, it is of paramount importance that we assert vigorously all opportunities for free debate in the face of any encroachments. It is probably too late to achieve a strict separation of powers and create an independent legislature in which a fluid party system would allow for cross-party collaboration and provide scope for independent activity by individual parliamentarians. But much else can be achieved. The committee system (a relative, if struggling, success of the new parliamentary system) must gain greater resources. We must condemn outright the recent rewriting of the rules on parliamentary question time, clearly designed to hamper the opposition. At the same time, it may be possible to hitch present conceptions of ”constructive opposition” and ”cooperative governance” to consideration of issues on their merits rather than simply along party lines.
Fourth, we need to stress that the task of opposition, of criticism, rests not only with non-government political parties but also with dissident elements within the ruling party. Moreover, it rests with the wide diversity of interests, organisations and associations that are usually taken to constitute civil society. This should imply vigorous defence of the rights and freedoms of an independent media and press.
More than this, a radical perspective would urge the need for internal democratic processes within the ANC/tripartite alliance to bond it to its popular support base. Indeed, some see such links as vital to counteracting some of the ”autocratic ethos” the ANC developed in exile.
Fifth, by according civil society a key role in counter-balancing government, we need to address the conditions under which it may flourish. Civil society has been in decline in South Africa since 1994 because of problems of re- orientation from ”resistance” to development, the drain of skilled activists to the government, loss of funding and a decline in union memberships.
Reviving the vibrancy and ”weight” of civil society organisations will be as difficult a task as elaborating how they should interact with both the government and parties in opposition.
Finally, we need to emphasise that the demand for accountability should constitute as much a plank of ”loyal support” for implementation of any government agenda as it should underpin the promotion of a coherent alternative programme by any opposition party.
Roger Southall is professor of politics at Rhodes University. This is an edited version of his keynote paper to a conference on Opposition in South Africa’s New Democracy at Kariega Park, near Kenton in the Eastern Cape