SA set for dawn of democracy: New constitution ratified today

TODAY, 17 November 1993, will go down in history as the date when South African leaders ratified the country's first democratic constitution, but President F W de Klerk jumped the gun yesterday afternoon and engaged in marginally premature celebrations.

During a surprise visit to the World Trade Centre, the building next to Johannesburg's Jan Smuts airport where multi-party constitutional talks have been taking place these last two years, Mr de Klerk declared himself to be 'very proud'.

'A new constitution has been born,' he told reporters. 'It's a joyous occasion, a momentous achievement. This will ensure a peaceful transition and lay the foundations for a proper democracy.'

Negotiators from the 21 parties engaged in the talks were still struggling through the night to try to finalise the required documents by this afternoon, when the leaders are due to meet. It is expected that debate will go on until noon today when 'consensus by exhaustion', as one columnist put it, is expected to prevail.

All eyes at the plenary will be on Mr de Klerk and Nelson Mandela, president of the African National Congress (ANC), who met in Pretoria last night in order, as Mr de Klerk explained, 'to cross the 't's and dot the 'i's'.

Their task will not be quite so simple, negotiatiors said, because they are expected to focus on one still unresolved question: the majority required to reach decisions in the first post-apartheid cabinet. The ANC has pressed for a simple majority, the government for two-thirds.

Since the ANC is expected to win more than 50 per cent, but less than 66 per cent, of the vote in the general elections scheduled for 27 April, the issue is of critical importance. Agreement has already been reached for the first government after the elections to function as a coalition, with minority party representation in the cabinet, until 1999.

The bulk of the new constitution has also been agreed and 'the bill of fundamental human rights' was completed yesterday afternoon by legal experts representing the various parties.

The constitution, which is formally described as 'interim' but will last for five years, enshrines a system designed to impose significant checks on the power of central government. The party that comes second in the elections, for example, will be able to appoint a vice-president if it secures more than 20 per cent of the national vote; South Africa will be a federal republic where significant powers are devolved by central government; the ultimate arbiter of justice, the guarantee that government does not abuse democracy, will be a constitutional court.

Agreement has also been reached in the last few days on the future army. The government has agreed that all armed formations in the country will enjoy equality of status - at least on paper - with the South African Defence Force (SADF). The way is thus paved for the ANC's army, Umkhonto weSizwe (Spear of the Nation), to merge with the SADF into a national army.

As for the bill of rights, its cornerstone is the principle - to which every paragraph in the constitution conforms - that all South Africans are to be treated equally and without discrimination of any form.

The latest polls indicate that at least 85 per cent of South Africans will give their approval to the agreements reached at the negotiations. A minority on the right wing, however, disapproves.

Mr de Klerk's joy today, as indeed Mr Mandela's, will be tempered by the knowledge that the recently formed Freedom Alliance has not been included in the deal. Hanging over the plenary proceedings will be the muttered threats of war emanating from the likes of Mangosuthu Buthelezi, leader of the Inkatha Freedom Party, and General Constand Viljoen of the separatist Afrikaner Volksfront.

Yesterday the government held the latest of a series of what have been billed as 'last- ditch' meetings with the Freedom Alliance. The talks yielded nothing save agreement to meet again, on Friday.

After yesterday's meeting the Alliance, which walked out of the constitutional negotiations in July, issued a warning: 'It would be most unfortunate if at tomorrow's plenary session the delegates make final and binding decisions which would effectively close the negotiation door.'