Evaluating the future of South Africa's constitutional democracy: Challenges and solutions

2025 SEES South Africa commemorate numerous milestones in the struggle to end apartheid, including Cosatu’s 40th anniversary and the 70th anniversaries of our predecessor, the South African Congress of Trade Unions and the Freedom Charter.

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It is important that we celebrate these struggles and honour those who made our constitutional democracy possible.

While we are proud of these milestones and how far we have come under government led by the ANC over the past 31 years of democracy, we must equally be honest over how far we still have to go, where we have erred and what needs to be done.

The first call of the Freedom Charter presciently demanded that The People Shall Govern!

Today South Africa is a robust democracy whose Constitution and the progressive values underpinning it are globally respected. Ours is a nation guided by the Constitution, with free and fair elections and where the state is held accountable by society and the courts.

We must be concerned by declining levels of voter turnout, fueled by despondency amongst society and by public representatives who exploit the privilege to lead as an opportunity to loot.

Legislation is subject to public participation, including at Nedlac where Labour and Business hold extensive engagements helping enrich Bills before they are tabled at Parliament for further public participation.

While there are legitimate complaints about the extent to which government and Parliament listen to society’s views, Cosatu can point to many instances where the workers’ proposals carried through, from the Two-Pot Pension Reforms releasing R44 billion helping 2.4 million highly indebted workers, to overhauling of the Public Investment Corporation Act to tackle corruption and ensure it invests its funds in ways that protect pension fund members, grow the economy and create jobs. The core of the liberation struggle was to defeat the apartheid regime and institutional discrimination and hence the call that all national groups shall have equal rights and all shall enjoy equal human rights.