Politics

Abstract

The African National Congress (ANC) whose foundation in 1912 makes it the oldest political party on the African continent finally came into its own as the ruling party of South Africa after decades of illegality, oppression and persecution. When, in December 1994, after its five-day national conference the ANC declared that it was ‘more united than ever’ it had good reason to be pleased with its recent achievements. The conference had backed the Mandela government’s conservative economic policies and had called for a new constitution that would enshrine ‘ordinary democratic majority rule’. The conference called on the government to take urgent measures to improve living standards for the black majority and to restructure the Afrikaner-dominated civil service. As the Justice Minister, Dullah Omar, said: ‘Until we transform state machinery as a whole into a loyal instrument of democracy, transfer of power to the people will not be complete.’1