DA flirts dangerously with Western Cape separatists

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On 26 September, the Democratic Alliance (DA) announced a working group for Western Cape devolution, along with several other organisations. The group’s first priority is devolving policing powers from the national government to the provincial level. 

This seemingly innocent move signals a dangerous upswell in the call for Western Cape independence. Once relegated to a fringe fantasy, this call has now been legitimised by the main opposition party — one that governs the Western Cape. South Africa must again reckon with the politics of partition.

The Western Cape Devolution Working Group (WGDWG) is a smorgasbord of conservatism. According to September’s announcement by the DA’s federal council chairperson, Helen Zille, the group consists of: the Cape Independence Advocacy Group, Cape Independence Party, AfriForum, Action Society, CapeForum, Southern African Agri Initiative (Saai), Freedom Front Plus, African Christian Democratic Party, “several legal experts” and the DA. It is hard to imagine a more glaring agglomeration of white privilege in one room.

Several of the organisations in the WCWG openly pursue Western Cape independence, not devolution. A third, CapeForum, vows to “place the Cape’s future in the Cape’s hands”. So, at least three of these organisations treat devolution as a bridge to full separation.

The working group’s other members are equally curious. Saai is a farmers’ association, while Action Society is an anti-crime collective, keen on “communities mobilising to protect themselves” and its leader is Ian Cameron, of Bheki Cele condemnation fame. 

Why would organisations such as these meddle in constitutional design, if not to protect sectional interests? And who are the “legal experts” behind this group? They did not see fit to name themselves.

Behind the working group’s carefully crafted press statement lies an evil intent. What we have here is crude white identity politics, veiled behind calls for public safety. Race matters in this instance because dreams of Western Cape independence cannot be severed from their history in racist politics.

Devolutionary delusions have a long history in South Africa. As Robert Cameron, professor in the University of Cape Town’s politics department, observes, centralising power was a key concern for the National Party from 1948. This meant frustrating devolutionary impulses inherent in the white unity pact of 1910. Centralising power in Pretoria was key to apartheid’s mission of total control, which might have been obstructed by noncompliant local authorities.

Then, as international criticism grew, a new and opposite strategy emerged for apartheid planners. Power was increasingly dispersed again to give the illusion of black autonomy. Apartheid carved Bantustans and forced African populations into them through a twisted process of pseudo self-determination. This temporarily deflected scrutiny from Pretoria’s racist policies.

In the democratic negotiations, white conservatives reimagined devolution; it became a strategy to insulate white minorities from the black majority. Afrikaner separatism nearly threatened the 1994 election. Some scholars even proposed that the new South Africa be divided into cantons, each with its own constitution, parliament and government. All this would soften the blow of black majority rule.

Although the ANC avoided these extreme proposals, it still made some concessions on devolution. South Africa balances an unwieldy three-tiered system of government inherited from the 1910 constitutional framework. The nine provinces largely follow ethnic borders envisaged by apartheid planners. And the 1996 Constitution still generates ungodly confusion about the true division of power between the national and provincial spheres.

If anything, in some instances, greater centralisation would serve South Africa; many of our service delivery woes stem from an intergovernmental game of accountability hot potato. And, if devolution happens, it is often better to occur at the local, rather than provincial level. Provinces themselves are an awkward intermediary layer between national dreams and hard local realities.  

More concerning is the DA’s choice to legitimise dangerous “independence” movements through the working group. And Zille, the DA’s point person on devolution, seems happy to open this Pandora’s box of partitionism. Her conversion from a centre-right opposition unifier to a convenor of fringe white right movements must rank high in the history of gymnastic ideological somersaults.

Zille has distanced the DA from the wider Cape independence movement. But these denials ring hollow when the DA openly flirts with the Cape Independence Party. In any case, devolution is already extreme; it involves an extensive handover of major powers currently exercised by the central government, and won through a national majority vote.

Devolution is no moderate middle ground. It would remake the state as we know it. Never mind the working group’s further aims, foreshadowed by Zille in a recent interview with podcaster Alec Hogg: “We are developing a whole-of-society approach to drive devolution of power … so that people can be immune to the failing national state.”

The working group’s aims are also incoherent. For one thing, its members seek devolution for the Western Cape alone, not for all provinces. They could never convince a majority of their political cause. Instead, they want to carve South Africa into tiny slices to secure power for themselves.

Then there is constitutional incoherence. On one hand, the working group pledges loyalty to the Constitution. On the other, it destroys the Constitution’s centrepiece — national unity. Look no further than the Constitution’s first adjective for the centrality of this value: “The Republic of South Africa is one, sovereign, democratic state …”. One means one.

The working group exploits the Constitution under the guise of public safety, only to abandon it with dreams of Cape independence. Separatists deny that “South Africa belongs to all who live in it”. They cannot, with the same mouth, profess constitutional loyalty. This mission, disguised as a constitutional project, is a raw power play.

To be sure, recent momentum for Western Cape devolution stems from the ANC’s disastrous misgovernance. The ANC must shoulder its share of blame for opening the political windows through which Cape devolutionists have climbed. But none of these realities supports the case for devolution. 

The correct response to disastrous ANC misrule is to build an alternative vision for all of South Africa, one which prioritises the poor black majority rather than walling off the privileged few.

Dr Sizwe Mpofu-Walsh is a lecturer in the department of international relations at the University of the Witwatersrand. He is the author of The New Apartheid.

The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Mail & Guardian.