Deadline Day

The morning of Wednesday, 8 May was grey and wintry in Cape Town. Outside the Parliament building, television crews jostled for the best positions and buses of school children arrived from all over the city to bear witness to the moment. Cyril Ramaphosa, Leon Wessels and Hassen Ebrahim waited for the MPs to be seated, and then as per an old tradition, they went off to Tuynhuys to fetch the President and bring him into the parliamentary chamber. “As usual, Madiba was prompt and waiting for us,” says Hassen.

Poster from the Constitutional Assembly media campaign. Constitutional Assembly

Then Deputy President FW de Klerk, President Nelson Mandela, Mrs Zanele Mbeki, wife of Deputy President Thabo Mbeki, Constitutional Assembly chairperson Cyril Ramaphosa and his deputy, Leon Wessels, make their way from the presidential offices at Tuynhuys to parliament where they are shortly to participate in the vote on the new constitution, May 8 1996. Benny Gool

Inside the chamber, the excitement was palpable. Mandela watched in silence as the Chairperson read out the Preamble and presented the Constitution to the Assembly’s members.

Today is a day of joy. It is a day of celebration. It is indeed a historic day. It is the birthday of the South African rainbow nation. This is the day when South Africa is truly born.

Since we embarked on the formal constitution-making process 24 months ago, South Africans from across the country have embraced the process as their own. It is no exaggeration when we say that a team of 43 million people worked on this Constitution.

Today we will vote on this Constitution. We will be exercising an awesome responsibility. It is my duty as Chairperson to urge all of us in this Assembly, even those who may have some reservations, to vote today for a democratic and free South Africa. Let us all give our country its true birth certificate. The people of our country expect no less of us.

Cyril Ramaphosa

then Chair of the Constitutional Assembly

FW de Klerk struck a somewhat more cautious, albeit supportive, note:

It is not a perfect Constitution, but it is a reasonable starting point. The NP will, therefore, vote for this Constitution … irrespective of its many shortcomings … because it contains and enshrines many important principles with which we fully identify. Nonetheless, it was a difficult decision.

FW DE KLERK

Deputy President FW de Klerk

Thereafter voting began. A miscount meant that the voting process had to be repeated twice. At 11 am, exactly ten hours after the negotiators had tabled the last amendments, the Constitutional Assembly adopted the Constitution. The ANC, NP, DP and PAC all voted in favour; the ACDP voted against; the CP and FF abstained; while the IFP boycotted the proceedings. The combined 421 votes in favour were more than the 327 needed to make up a two-thirds majority. This was a remarkable show of support, particularly so because the text was forward-looking. The ANC erupted into song as President Mandela stepped up to the podium:

The brief seconds when the majority of honourable members quietly assented to the new basic law of the land have captured, in a fleeting moment, the centuries of history that the South African people have endured in search of a better future.

As one, you, the representatives of the overwhelming majority of South Africans, have given voice to the yearnings of millions. And so, it has come to pass that today South Africa undergoes her rebirth, cleansed of a horrible past, matured from a tentative beginning and reaching out to the future with confidence.

PRESIDENT NELSON MANDELA

Celebrations as the Constitution is accepted by Parliament. Subash Jeram / Constitutional Assembly

Many people, like Valli Moosa, were overjoyed at the outcome of the vote:

It was remarkable that 87% of the members of the Constitutional Assembly voted for the Constitution. It gives it a special status. It says that it’s not the document of some or other political party, that it’s really a consensus document belonging to the South African nation. The ANC wanted that. That’s why we did take the other parties very seriously. It wouldn’t have been good enough if we simply had two-thirds voting in favour of the Constitution.

VALLI MOOSA

then ANC member of the Constitutional Assembly

Dr Corné Mulder, who had been an MP since 1988 first for the NP and then for the Freedom Front, understood the ANC’s elation at this moment:

If I was the ANC, who have been struggling since 1912 to obtain my objectives, this was the heyday of their whole struggle. I’m trying to put myself in their position. Then I can understand their joy – the elation for what they have achieved.

Dr Corné Mulder

then Freedom Front member of the Constitutional Assembly

The sense of elation was not confined to the ANC. The NP’s Piet Marais, who had been in the eye of the storm over the education clause until the bitter end, expressed his own sense of the accomplishment:

I was working for the day that I can go to Europe, wearing a T-shirt with the words, ‘I’m South African and proud of it’ on it and that has happened and nothing can be more wonderful than that. We are now part of the whole brotherhood of nations – part of humanity.

Piet Marais

then National Party member of the Constitutional Assembly

For Leon Wessels, who had been asked to Chair the proceedings, the moment was bittersweet:

I was over the moon when the Constitution was accepted. There was no stopping Ramaphosa. He jumped up and sang with the cheerful ANC members. I also wanted to jump for joy. I had one look at the NP-benches and saw them looking glum. They didn’t look like a group who was part of the process that had yielded this result. They disowned their own work. I decided not to embarrass FW by joining the singing and the dancing. I sat tight lipped. I was relieved that I would part ways with this disgruntled lot. I was sick and tired of politics where you were not judged on the merit of your argument but by who supported you.

LEON WESSELS

then Deputy Chair of the Constitutional Assembly

Leon Wessels, Cyril Ramaphosa and Roelf Meyer celebrating at the party. Leon Muller / The Star

Nelson Mandela joins in the celebrations. Subash Jeram

They wrote the constitution

Constitutional Assembly and members of Parliament photographed outside the Parliament buildings in Cape Town. David Goldblatt ©The David Goldblatt Legacy Trust

The 490 members of the Constitutional Assembly filed out of Parliament and gathered in front of the tall white columns that mark the entrance of the building. They hugged, smiled and shook hands. Regardless of whether this was a moment of triumph or not, every person recognised the importance of the occasion. A country that had been at war with itself a mere half-decade before had come together and adopted a democratic Constitution and a comprehensive Bill of Rights. Ramaphosa described the scene:

The apartheid securocrats were sitting next to the people they had once labelled terrorists. Former detainees were discussing the weather with their former gaolers. Exhaustion was mixed with joy and relief on the faces assembled in the shadow of Cape Town’s famous mountain.

CYRIL RAMAPHOSA

then Chair of the Constitutional Assembly

Nelson Mandela, FW de Klerk and the Chairperson of the Constitutional Assembly address the gathered Constitutional Assembly, members of Parliament and members of the public. Subash Jeram / Constitutional Assembly

The singing of Selstan’s composition, One Law for One Nation, followed. South African artists Jennifer Jones and Jabu Hlongwane were seen and heard by millions of South Africans watching the live television coverage and listening to all the major radio stations.

The unveiling of the Constitution mural outside Parliament. Subash Jeram

Next, Mandela unveiled a huge mural of the Constitution on a building opposite Parliament. As friends and fellow South Africans gathered around, he uttered these words of optimism:

It is my very special pleasure and privilege to unveil the mural which commemorates the process which has brought us to this point. It symbolises our pledge to work together, united as a rainbow nation in our diversity, to build a better life for all our people.

President Nelson Mandela

He also honoured the participatory nature of the process:

As they have done so often before, the people of South Africa have confounded the experts. The people seized the opportunity to have a say in the fundamental law that will guide our land towards a better life. From the educated and the illiterate; from our cities and our deepest rural areas; from business and labour; from adults and from children, too young to vote but not too young to feel their responsibility for their future; indeed, across every contour of our society, our representatives were made to feel the pulse of the new South African nation.

President Nelson Mandela

The final Constitution as adopted by the Constitutional Assembly, 8 May 1996. Constitutional Assembly