National cohesion and intergovernmental relations in South Africa

Abstract

The creation of provinces in 1994 gave effect to the grand compromise of the 1993 negotiations, but also raised fears about the deleterious consequences they could hold for national cohesion. A first concern was that provinces would work against national political cohesion, fanning the fires of separatism and entrenching ethnic enclaves. In 1993 an apparent case in point presented itself when the KwaZulu Legislature, dominated by Chief Mangosuthu Buthelezi's Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP), adopted a draft constitution for the then non-existent state of KwaZulu-Natal which would operate in a confederal system for South Africa (Ellmann 1993). Similarly, the fear was that a Western Cape governed by the National Party (NP) would perpetuate the apartheid legacy. Both the IFP and NP, however, deemed themselves national parties, and they, too, wanted to be part of the national scene where resources and power were mainly located.