Forging Constitutional and Parliamentary Democracy Through Constituency Offices in South Africa

Introduction

The 1994 elections set the centre stage for democracy characterised by a vision of a united citizenship with gender equality, social cohesion and peace based on a constitution and governance system in South Africa (Enonchong, 2020). In contrast to the racially discriminatory nature of apartheid, Klotz, 2018), Bua & Bussu (2021, p. 720) argue that the emerging discourse of participatory governance is rooted in the ideas about state accountability, state responsiveness, and citizen participation. From the outset, the democratic transition placed an emphasis on constructive political agency by various actors across the political, religious, and racial spectrum (Nugent, 2020). Thus, the adoption of the Constitution was preceded by a protracted struggle against discriminatory and oppressive system of Apartheid which outstripped black South Africans of their full citizenship. A non-racial and democratic South Africa was brought about through a negotiated settlement known as Convention for a Democratic South Africa (CODESA), which ultimately resulted in the national elections in 1994. Central to the democratic governance is the Constitution (1996) which made South Africa a democratic and constitutional democracy. As such, the Constitution is the pillar of South African democracy hence, Maphunye, et al. (2014, p. 5) report that ‘the 1996 Constitution laid the foundation of dismantling the apartheid system and paved the way for a democratic journey to a free society that is non-racial, non-sexist, and founded on values of human dignity and freedom’ Democratic governance is to be understood as a system of political participation by the people in public affairs with people’s power and the idea of equal rights for all citizens (Asaduzzaman & Virtanen, 2016). The democratic dispensation was underpinned by the unbanning of political organisations (Boateng & Afranie, 2020) negotiated settlement (Duursma, 2020), and consequently the national elections in 1994 were considered by many scholars as a ‘miracle’. However, Harris (2020) argues that the new South Africa is not a miracle, but an outcome of a tenacious struggle by mostly black South Africans against their exploitation and oppression by colonialists and racists for almost 350 years. The idea of a miracle was also rejected by Ramphele (2008, p. 28) who labelled it as ‘seductive ’and as such ignoring the hard work that went into making peace with the past (p. 38), and as a result does an injustice to those who gave up so much in order to transcend the past. Thus, post 1994 saw the enactment of policies, processes and structures aimed at advancing and consolidating democracy based on the constitution. These legalistic frameworks were enacted to redress the injustice of the past and forge a democratic order base on social justice and democratic ideals and principles. Hence, the inauguration of the democratic government through proportional representation (PR) electoral system elevated political representatives in pubic structures at various spheres of government be it at the national or provincial levels (Ncube, 2017). PR system is differentiated from constituency electoral system in the sense that the latter voters elect their candidates directly (Ncube, 2017; Jolobe & Graham, 2017)