2 MONTHS AWAY

In mid-March 1996, the Management Committee evaluated progress after considering the fourth edition of the Working Draft. Roelf Meyer observed:

The more difficult issues had been fairly easily resolved while some of the issues that were originally thought to be of lesser importance became the final stumbling blocks.

ROELF MEYER

then National Party member of the Constitutional Assembly

These stumbling blocks were:

  • Death penalty: what form should the ‘right to life’ clause take?
  • Property clause: to what extent should property have constitutional protection?
  • Lock–out: should employers be entitled to enforce lock-outs during strikes?
  • Language: what would be the official language or languages?
  • Education: should the Constitution allow single-medium schools?
  • Socio-economic legislation: should the Bill of Rights include these second-tier rights?

Ramaphosa was not surprised that these issues had become sticking points, because of their deep historical associations with apartheid:

 The question of single-medium instruction in schools, property rights and the employer’s right to lock out, all represented in some ways the NP’s desire to maintain through the Constitution some of the privileges and inequalities that had characterised apartheid. These were not the matters on which the ANC was prepared to compromise, as it had been on other, less substantive matters.

CYRIL RAMAPHOSA

First State Of The NAtion Address, 9 May 1994

Smaller parties felt equally reluctant to compromise. Henno Cronje, then of the Federasie van Afrikaanse Kultuurvereniginge (FAK) said of his organisation’s advocacy of monolingual Afrikaans schools: ‘If this demand doesn’t come right, it has serious consequences for reconciliation.’

The major issue for us is of course the property clause. We will be insisting that it must be there to provide access to land rather than protection to private property.

Patricia de Lille

THEN MEMBER OF THE PAC

The pace of negotiations picked up as the deadline of 8 May approached. Besides the deadlocked issues, a further 54 issues still needed political attention and 25 technical issues needed to be resolved. There was now a serious concern that the final Constitution would not be completed in time. The negotiators accepted a proposal mooted by the administration that a multilateral meeting should take place in relative isolation over several days to resolve all outstanding issues. All parties agreed: they were keen to meet the deadline and have a final Constitution adopted.

EXPLORE THE ARCHIVE

Audio Visual

President Mandela gives his State of the Nation address in Parliament. Mandela ends his address with the words, “Let us all get down to work”.

“We must construct that people-centred society of freedom in such a manner that it guarantees the political and the human rights of all our citizens.”– President Mandela, extract from State of the Nation Address, 24 May 1994

President Nelson Mandela announces his cabinet. It includes members of the African National Congress, National Party and Inkatha Freedom Party.

“There was pride in serving in the first democratic government in South Africa, and then the additional pride of serving under the iconic leadership of Nelson Mandela … [He] represented the hopes of not just our country, but of oppressed, marginalised and the poor in the world.”– Jay Naidoo, then Minister of RDP housing
“We place our vision of a new constitutional order for South Africa on the table not as conquerors, prescribing to the conquered. We speak as fellow citizens to heal the wounds of the past with the intent of constructing a new order based on justice for all.”– President Nelson Mandela, 10 May 1994