Inkatha Pulls Out Of Sa Constitution Talks

It does not look as if there is any prospect of all-party agreement on a constitutional text, so there was no point in our continued participation, IFP chief negotiator Walter Felgate said.

He said the decision was taken by the partys National Council in the Inkatha-ruled KwaZulu-Natal province on Sunday. The decision sank hopes of unanimity on a draft constitution adopted without Inkathas support in May but returned by the Constitutional Court last month for refinement of eight issues.

Politicaltroublesome and querulous presence in KwaZulu-Natal province for as long as Inkatha rules the roost there, but its not a particularly big or impressive roost, said political scientist David Welsh.

 

However it also means a sizeable chunk of electoral support in the province remains uncommitted to the new structure.

KwaZulu-Natal has nearly eight million people, out of a total South African population of 31 million.

Negotiators from the remaining six parliamentary parties, including the white-led National Party, on Monday finalised details of amendments to address the courts criticisms.

The elected Constitutional Assembly (CA), which Inkatha boycotted from February last year until last week, has until Friday to resubmit the text to the court for approval.

The role of the Amakhosi (chiefs) and traditional leaders is the burning issue of the moment. They have been stripped of all powers and this has to be addressed, Felgate said.

We were not able to achieve what had to be achieved in the time available so there was no point in continuing.

Felgate said the Zulu-based IFP, which dominates the countrys most populous province, would continue to seek incremental amendments to the constitution that will eventually make it acceptable to us.

ANC negotiator Pravin Gordhan told a CA sub-committee that after a weekend of one-to-one talks with Inkatha, he was told on Monday that the party would not participate further in the work of the CA.

The position that they have put forward on local government, that they want traditional authorities to be the primary municipalities not only in KwaZulu-Natal, but all over the country, is the position around which they are willing to break participation.

It is with some regret that we must announce this morning that they are not going to be part of the process of finalising the constitution from today onwards, he said.

The ANC, which won 62 percent of the vote in South Africas first democratic elections in April, 1994, insists that all representatives must be elected.

Inkatha won control of KwaZulu-Natal in the 1994 election, but took only 10 percent of the national vote and 48 of the 490 seats in the CA.

Inkatha last week ended an 18-month boycott of the constitution-writing process, tabling about 60 amendments to the draft constitution which would have shifted power from central government to provincial authorities and traditional leaders.

Welsh said Inkatha had shot itself in the foot by leaving the negotiations in the first place and it could not have expected to achieve big changes in the draft at this late stage.