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1 2 February 1 995
With due respect, please find and process
my humble proposals to the Constitutional Assembly, which are related to
democracy and character
of the State.
They are attached
hereunder.
REUBEN SEBENZILE MASANGO
PROPOSALS TO THE CONSTITUTIONAL ASSEMBLY OF SOUTH
AFRICA
BY
REUBEN SEBENZILE MASANGO
DEMOCRACY
Elections shall be held to elect members of the legislature and the State
President after every five years. All citizens of South
Africa shall have an
equal right to vote in the national elections.
Political parties
or group formations to contest the elections should meet predetermined minimum
requirements, which have been drawn
in such a way that they are achievable to
smaller and bigger parties.
Minimum requirements for contesting
the election should be part of the constitution so that in future the government
of the day does
not have a chance of manipulating them in its
favour.
Political parties formed basically on racial or gender lines,
and whose intention is; simplicity or explicity; to promote racial divisions
in
society, should never be allowed to contest the elections.
When they become
legislatures, all members of the legislature should be elected representatives
of their constituencies (political
parties, interest groups or any other legal
group formation of the public), or appointed by the State President, acting on
the advice
of the cabinet or President's council or a committee of experts in
the area of operation of the incumbent under
consideration.
Provision should be made to accommodate members of
parliament, in parliament who have no political party
affiliation.
Members of Parliament should be free to join or
resign in political parties, whether such parties have been their constituencies
or
not. This will help parliamentarians to be free to act in the national
interest even if that means acting against their political
party interest,
without the fear of loosing parliamentary membership.
Members of
parliament should adhere to democratic norms, specifically with regard to their
behaviour, they should always conduct themselves
in a manner which they believe,
to the best of their knowledge, is acceptable to the government of the
day.
A referendum in which all South African citizens will
participate should be called before fundamental changes can be made in the
constitution.
CHARACTER OF STATE
The Republic of South
Africa should remain a unitary state under one national
government.
South Africa should be divided into provinces or regions
to enable it to be democratically governable.
Such provinces
should be similar or same to the existing nine regions. All provinces
should
be subordinate to the national government.
Powers of the provinces
should be determined by the national government in collaboration with the
provinces and seriously taking into
account South Africa's cultural
diversity.
Provinces of the Republic of South Africa should never
be granted independence from the central government as that will have disastrous
economic consequences for South Africa.
The heads of the
provinces or premises should be elected in provincial elections, where all
citizens of the province can vote, and
they should contest the elections as
individuals not under political parties where names of political parties rather
than individuals
are voted for.
Provinces should in turn be
divided into local communities (town, villages, rural communities) who will fall
under local government.
Local communities will be subordinate to the provincial
government. Leaders of the local communities will be elected in local
government
election after a specific period.
In rural areas
traditional leaders should collaborate with the elected local representatives in
dealing with political matters of
the community. These will include local
government elections, contesting, campaigning and determination of priorities
relating to
services to be delivered by the government such as building of
schools, clinics and allocation of land for housing and
farming.
Thank you
R.S. MASANGO
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