The overwhelming majority of South Africans are proud to be South African and these people also believe in democracy, President Thabo Mbeki said on Friday.
Addressing a summit of the National Council of Provinces (NCOP) — which is 10 years old — Mbeki noted that a recent survey conducted by Markinor and the University of Stellenbosch found that 95% of citizens were proud to be South Africans.
People believed in democracy as a system of governance ”and have confidence that our democracy will develop positively in the future”. He noted that the survey had been conducted at the end of last year.
He reported that according to the survey, 19 out of 20 respondents said they were either ”very” or ”quite proud” to be South African.
The president said: ”Our people would not assume this positive stance if our country was evolving in a wrong direction. I am pleased to say that all of us are proudly South Africans partly because of the quality of our democracy, towards which the NCOP has made an immense contribution.
”As we know, the NCOP came into effect on February 6 1997, following the adoption of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa by the Constitutional Assembly on May 8 1996. This is the Constitution whose implementation has made the overwhelming majority of the people of this country proud to be South African.
”It is a Constitution that the people of this country are confident will guide this country today and in the future. This is the Constitution that all of us, members of the NCOP and all the citizens of this country, are prepared to defend at all times.” — I-Net Bridge