Newspaper Article

Too may chiefs, not enough honesty

Claassens, Aninka

2012

Overview

Even more perplexing is that the justice department's proposal re-affirms the bill's reliance on the controversial tribal boundaries entrenched by the Traditional Leadership and Governance Framework Act of 2003. More specifically, it reiterates that \"alignment with this legislation pre-empts the criticism that the bill entrenches apartheid-era boundaries\". One of the reasons the Traditional Courts Bill was so fiercely rejected by rural people during the recent public hearings is that they have had time to make sense of this legislative package since the enactment of the Traditional Leadership and Governance Framework Act in 2003, and provincial laws that bolster chiefly power, in 2005. These laws have elicited a return by some chiefs to the arrogance and abuses of the Bantustan era, and have given rural people a bitter foretaste of what is in store if the Traditional Courts Bill is passed. The ANC's symbolic capital is its pivotal role in the transition from apartheid to democracy. Central to that was dismantling the Bantustan system and creating equal citizenship for all South Africans - black and white, urban and rural. The strongest support for the ANC in the 1994 elections came from rural voters who had been engaged in fierce anti-Bantustan struggles.

• Publisher: Independent Online (South Africa)