Politics Administration Dichotomy 

INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND 

South Africa is thirty years into a democratic and constitutional order anchored on non-racialism. It is a legally and legitimately constituted nation-state. Accepting a thirty year periodisation criteria, South Africa is within its rights to initiate several review projects to imagine the next three decades. It is a politically inclusive order and comparatively young in that sense. 

As a state with administrative and bureaucratic processes, and entrenched state hierarchies, South Africa boasts an advanced tradition and history. It is one of the few countries to have established a public service commission, a workmans compensation authority, a judicial authority, and a centra banking dispensation in the first two decades of the 1900s. Until the 1990-1996 political settlement, which was essentially about the non-racialisation of political participation through a universal franchise, the nature of the state and its politics has been that of a “bureaucracy that was political, and politics that were bureaucratised”. This condition, where the lines between government administration and political decision-making are blurred or intertwined, is arguably what made the perpetuation of the apartheid crime legally enforceable despite it being illegitimate and a crime against humanity. 

The 1996 Constitution establishes RSA as one, sovereign, democratic state with a government constituted as national, provincial and local spheres of government which are distinctive, interdependent and interrelated. As a democracy, it is anchored on the principle of operating through its freely elected representatives who derive public power and authority from the Constitution as the supreme law of the Republic. The political roles of freely elected representatives is unambiguous in the Constitution, they are evidence of the participation of society in the democratic order. 

Save for the nitty gritties of its tormented past before the adoption of the 1996 Constitution, in thematic terms South Africa was holistically tormented by its legalised commitment not to be a state established according to the will of all its people. The racialisation and tribalisation of human wills to legimise the separatist will of a militaristic and social and economic injustice incentivised ruling and governing elite defined what being free from apartheid and colonialisation should mean as a liberation promise to South Africans. The negotiations to make apartheid and colonialism illegal and illegitimate dealt with how political power would hence-then be people’s will-based. 

Thirty years after the adoption of its Constitution, South Africa is poised to start a national dialogue about its journey into the next thirty years of democracy. The dialogue comes hot on the heels of several key conversations about the constitutional order since the 1990-1996 political settlement. There will be thematic areas that the dialogue will focus on depending on the ultimate consensus on the content aspects the preparatory committee positions in the dialogue framework.

More acutely relevant to the -Rethinking the State Theme of the Thinc Foundation’s Public Affairs Working Paper Series -professionalisation of the public service or broadly  public service reform, and the review of the system of local government are two areas this article will utilise to advance the arguments that will unfold. The consensus point of departure is that the 1995 Constitution is the authoritative arrangement of how South Africans have agreed to govern themselves, and thus not in question unless otherwise revisited within commitment thresholds. The Constitution is a legal convergence point of the liberation promise South Africans have been yearning for. This includes the promises it holds for the liberated from being a vortex of human injustice complex of individuals and institutions that are status quo defending. 

Beyond the overriding call for all South Africans to recognise (and know) the injustices of the past, it is indisputable that South Africa as a sovereign nation and state is about the following,

Healing the divisions of the past. 

Establishing a society based on democratic values, social justice and fundamental human rights;

Laying the foundations for a democratic and open society in which government is based on the will of the people and every citizen is equally protected by law;

Improving the quality of life of all citizens and free the potential of each person; and

Building a united and democratic South Africa able to take its rightful place as a sovereign state in the family of nations.

Building a state founded on the values of 

Human dignity, the achievement of equality and the advancement of human rights and freedoms.

Non-racialism and non-sexism.

Supremacy of the constitution and the rule of law.

Universal adult suffrage, a national common voters roll, regular elections and a multi-party system of democratic government, to ensure accountability, responsiveness and openness.

Respecting, promoting, protecting, and fulfilling the rights in the Bill of Rights 

CONTEXT