Steven Friedman worm’s eye view For a while the African National Congress leadership has been eager to use its majority in Parliament to impose its will. In the public accounts and safety and security committees, the ANC has used its votes to ensure that the will of its leaders is served. Outside the house, groups as diverse as teachers’ unions and human rights activists are told by Cabinet ministers that since the government has been elected by the majority, they should stop questioning it and begin implementing its agenda. Is this simply a case of those in power using it to serve their own interests?
No, we are told: there is a principle at stake. It was expressed recently by National Assembly Speaker Frene Ginwala; pressed by an interviewer on claims that she was biased in favour of the governing party, she replied that in a democracy, the majority’s decision must prevail. She was no doubt well aware that in a country with our history, insistence on the majority’s rights has a strong emotional appeal. We are used to defining majorities and minorities racially and, since apartheid’s death throes, we have become used to attempts to dilute the principle of majority rule by those who are eager to find new ways of preserving racial minority privileges: at first, quaint “power-sharing” formulae were suggested; nowadays, they have given way to attempts to limit government powers so that they are not used to make a difference to anyone’s life. But that does not mean that democracy in any country gives the majority party the leeway to do what it likes. On the contrary, the more it is given free reign, the less likely it is to do what most voters would like. Democracy is not only a system of majority rule; it is also one of minority rights, if we understand “minority” not as a racial term but as a description of those whose parties do not win majority support. Voters for the Pan Africanist Congress and the Azanian People’s Organisation are as much members of the minority as those who choose the Democratic Alliance or Freedom Front. The system is meant to ensure that leaders are chosen by the people. But the people cannot choose unless they can freely debate their choices. That makes it essential that everyone, including the minority, is allowed to influence citizens. To do that, they need the right to speak and organise. In one sense these minority rights are under no threat today; minorities continue to enjoy all the necessary democratic freedoms. But if Parliament’s business is conducted so as to deny minority parties their right to be heard, democracy is violated because citizens’ right to hear both sides before choosing is obstructed. A more important aspect of some current governing party behaviour, however, is not the damage it may do to the minority, but how it may harm the majority.
Ginwala and some of her colleagues seem simply to assume that the majority party always reflects the opinion or interests of most citizens that what the party with most votes wants is always what most voters want. But voters rarely if ever choose a party because they support all its policies; since large parties have policies on a wide range of issues, most of us back a party because it is closest to our views. If we looked for one which expressed our view on every issue, we would probably never vote. This means that parties may adopt some policies which most of their voters dislike.
And since governments rule for five years, during which they must face many unforeseen issues, it is unlikely that every decision a governing party makes will have been covered in its election manifesto. How do we know whether a policy not mentioned before the last election enjoys majority support?
Concrete evidence of the first point is offered by the debate on the growth, employment and redistribution (Gear) strategy. The Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) opposed the policy before and after the 1999 election but was very much part of the ANC alliance during the campaign. Did the nearly two-thirds who supported the ANC vote for that part of the alliance which backs Gear or that which opposes it? On the second, there was nothing in the ANC manifesto questioning the link between HIV and Aids. How do we know where the majority stand on that issue? Similarly, there was no promise to refrain from criticising Robert Mugabe. Cosatu supports Zimbabwe’s opposition: might the majority not agree with it?
Because an election result does not tell us where citizens stand on specific issues, it is a feature of democracy that, between elections, citizens should enjoy the right to express themselves on these questions. Vigorous debate among citizens’ groups is not a threat to majority rule; it is its guarantee.
Similarly, the fact that most voters have endorsed a party does not mean that they have given it a blank cheque to do whatever it likes in their name. Politicians do not generally campaign on a promise to waste or siphon off public money they promise honesty and efficiency. They promise much more besides jobs, houses, growth. How is the majority who give them a mandate to make sure that they act on it? How does it even find out what those in whom trust was placed are doing? Again, citizens need the right to organise. And accountable government is possible only if the majority party is subject to rules, forcing it to inform us of its actions. Blanket party votes in parliamentary committees ensuring that ministers do not have to answer questions do not uphold majority rule they undermine it by ensuring that citizens lack the information they need to protect their interests. The majority party is entitled to rule, in the sense that it must pass laws and implement policies. But it does not have the right to make the rules within which it does so; this restraint on it is essential if most voters are to know what is being done in their name and with their trust. So those who insist that the majority party ought not only to rule but to make the rules are not protecting the majority. They are, rather, giving politicians a licence to ignore it And politicians who insist that, because they have a mandate from the electorate, interest groups and activists should not debate or criticise their policies may find that they are doing more to suppress the will of the majority than to act on it. To insist that the largest party limit itself by submitting to rules and taking seriously the concerns of citizens is not to deny the majority rule for which our citizens fought for decades; it is to demand one of its preconditions.