THE DA AND THE FREEDOM CHARTER


Summary

The DA does not condemn or oppose the Freedom Charter.

We acknowledge the scale and symbolic significance of the Congress of the People in Kliptown, where the Charter was adopted in 1955.

We recognise the importance of the Freedom Charter in articulating a non-racial vision for South Africa - "South Africa belongs to all who live in it, black and white" - at a time when the apartheid state was entrenching racial discrimination on the statute books.

With the exception of its economic sections, which espouse an outdated socialist vision, the DA supports many of the terms of the Charter which mirror the principles to be found in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other human rights conventions.

We have two main objections: not to the Charter itself, but to the way in which the ANC has resuscitated the Charter for its own political ends.

Firstly, the ANC is elevating the Freedom Charter above the Constitution. The Constitution of our country is the founding document of our democracy. It contains all of the worthwhile features of the Charter, most notably the Charter's emphasis on equal rights, freedom and justice. But the Charter was not the compact upon which our nation was founded. It does not oblige the state to protect the people's freedoms. It is therefore our Constitution that should be promoted and defended.

Secondly, the government is spending state resources on promoting the Charter for the ruling party's own political purposes. The ANC's January 8th statement makes it clear that the party plans to fight the local government elections on the basis of the Charter. This constitutes a conflation of party and state.

Later this month (June 2005), Parliament plans to host a special sitting of "The People's Assembly" in Kliptown to mark the anniversary of the Congress of the People.

The People's Assembly will last a day and a half and cost well over R5 million. This figure does not take into account accommodation, car hire and airfares for MPs who are expected to be present in Kliptown. Nor does it include the costs in each of the 9 provinces where there will be link-ups with all 9 provincial legislatures.

The event is designed to distract people's attention away from the ANC's failure to deliver on its promises to the electorate. Internally, the invocation of the Charter is designed to shore up the tripartite alliance as tensions mount over the fate of the Deputy President and the direction of the ANC's economic policy. Externally, a focus on the Charter aims to deflect attention from the government's poor record of service delivery in the run-up to the local government elections.

The more the ANC moves away from the provisions of the Freedom Charter, the more it pays lip service to the Charter.

Download supporting documents (Freedom Charter ANC Betrayal Presser.doc)