South African History Online

Speech at the Final Sitting of the First Democratically Elected
Parliament

Cape Town, 26 March 1999

Madame Speaker
Chairperson of the National Council of
Provinces
Honourable Members and Delegates

Today does not mark the end of our country's first democratic government.

Nor does it bring to an end the term that I have the profound privilege to be
serving as President.

The business of government continues for some months to come and the high
responsibilities which our Constitution confers on the President must still be
exercised in the interests of our nation.

But this day is a moment of deep significance for all of us whom the people
of South Africa have entrusted with representing their needs and interests,
their aspirations and hopes.

And so it comes to pass that we who have collectively accepted the role of
political leadership of our nation, today take leave of one another as members
of this, our country's first democratically elected Parliament.

Because the people of South Africa finally chose a profoundly legal path to
their revolution, those who frame and enact constitution and law are in the
vanguard of the fight for change.

It is in the legislatures that the instruments have been fashioned to create
a better life for all.

It is here that oversight of government has been exercised.

It is here that our society in all its formations has had an opportunity to
influence policy and its implementation.

In brief, we have laid the foundation for a better life. Things that were
unimaginable a few years ago have become everyday reality. And of this we must
be proud.

Questions have been raised, we know, as to whether this House is not a
carriage on the gravy train, whose passengers idle away their time at the
nation's expense.

To those who raise such questions we say: Look at the record of our
Parliament during these first years of freedom

Look at the work of the nation's representatives when they formed themselves
into a Constitutional Assembly.

With a breadth of consultation and public participation that few would have
imagined possible, and in a spirit of unprecedented consensus-seeking, it was
here that a constitution was formulated and adopted to enshrine our people's
deepest aspirations.

Look at the one hundred laws on average that have been passed by this
legislature each year.

These have been no trivial laws nor mere adjustments to an existing body of
statutes. They have created a framework for the revolutionary transformation of
society and of government itself, so that the legacy of our past can be undone
and put right. It was here that the possibility was created of improving the
lives and working conditions of millions.

Look at the work of the committees that have scrutinised legislation and
improved it, posed difficult questions of the executive and given the public
insight and oversight of government as never before,

This is a record in which we can take pride.

But even as we do so, we do need to ask whether we need to re-examine our
electoral system, so as to improve the nature of our relationship, as public
representatives, with the voters!

Honourable members and delegates;

I raise this question with great pride in what has been done to lay the
foundation of democracy in our country. Personally I dare to say that moments in
my life have been few and far between when I have sensed the excitement of
change as in this august chamber.

Each historical period defines specific challenges of national progress and
leadership; and no man is an island.

As for me personally, I belong to the generation of leaders for whom the
achievement of democracy was the defining challenge.

I count myself fortunate in not having had to experience the rigours of exile
and decades of underground and mass struggles that consumed the lives of such
giants as Oliver Tambo, Anton Lembede, Duma Nokwe, Moses Kotane, Robert Sobukwe,
Oscar Mpetha, Lilian Ngoyi, Bishop Alpheus Zulu, Bram Fischer, Helen Joseph,
Alex La Guma and Yusuf Dadoo.

I count myself fortunate that, amongst that generation, history permitted me
to take part in South Africa's transition from that period into the new era
whose foundation we have been laying together.

I hope that decades from now, when history is written, the role of that
generation will be appreciated, and that I will not be found wanting against the
measure of their fortitude and vision.

Indeed, Madame Speaker, I have noted with deep gratitude, the generous praise
that has often been given to me as an individual. But let me state this:

To the extent that I have been able to achieve anything, I know that this is
because I am the product of the people of South Africa.

I am the product of the rural masses who inspired in me the pride in our past
and the spirit of resistance.

I am the product of the workers of South Africa who, in the mines, factories,
fields and offices of our country, have pursued the principle that the interests
of each are founded in the common interest of all.

Iam the product of South Africa's intelligentsia, of every colour, who have
laboured to give our society knowledge of itself and to fashion our people's
aspirations into a realisable dream. I am the product of South Africa's business
people - in industry and agriculture, commerce and finance - whose spirit of
enterprise has helped turn our country's immense natural resources into the
wealth of our nation.

To the extent that I have been able to take our country forward to this new
era it is because I am the product of the people of the world who have cherished
the vision of a better life for all people everywhere. They insisted, in a
spirit of self-sacrifice, that that vision should be realised in South Africa
too. They gave us hope because we knew by their solidarity that our ideas could
not be silenced since they were the ideas of all humanity.

I am the product of Africa and her long-cherished dream of a rebirth that can
now be realised so that all of her children may play in the sun.

If I have been able to help take our country a few steps towards democracy,
non-racialism and non-sexism, it is because I am a product of the African
National Congress, of the movement for justice, dignity and freedom that
produced countless giants in whose shadow we find our glory.

Madame Speaker;

When, as will be the case in a few months, I once again become an ordinary
citizen of our land, it shall be as one whose concerns and capacities are shaped
by the people of our land.

I will count myself as amongst the aged of our society; as one of the rural
population; as one concerned for the children and youth of our country; and as a
citizen of the world committed, as long as I have strength, to work for a better
life for all people everywhere. And as I have always done, I will do what I can
within the discipline of the broad movement for peace and democracy to which I
belong.

I will then count myself amongst the ordinary men and women whose well being
must, in any country, be the standard by which democratic government must be
judged

Primary amongst these criteria is the Reconstruction and Development
Programme aimed at building a better life for all.

Primary amongst these criteria are national unity and reconciliation amongst
communities and citizens whose destiny is inseparable.

Honourable Members;

It is a measure of our success as a nation that an international community
that inspired hope in us, in turn itself finds hope in how we overcame the
divisions of centuries by reaching out to one another. To the extent that we
have been able to reciprocate in renewing hope amongst the people of the world,
we are grateful indeed and feel doubly blessed. And it goes without saying that
we should all live up to those expectations which the world has of us.

As I was reminded yet again on the visit which I have just made to the
Netherlands and four Nordic countries, the world admires us for our success as a
nation in rising to the challenges of our era.

Those challenges were: to avoid the nightmare of debilitating racial war and
bloodshed and to reconcile our people on the basis that our overriding objective
must be together to overcome the legacy of poverty, division and inequity.

To the extent that we have still to reconcile and heal our nation; to the
extent that the consequences of apartheid still permeate our society and define
the lives of millions of South Africans as lives of deprivation, those
challenges are unchanged.

I would like to take this opportunity to pay tribute to all the parties
represented in this Parliament for their contribution to the progress we have
made. Though we have our differences, often important and sometimes profound, we
have as a collective demonstrated our overriding commitment to the new order
that we have together established. You have ensured that this Parliament is no
rubber stamp in the hands of government and given birth to a new democratic
political culture.

And so, in the spirit of that democracy we are today taking leave of one
another so that our parties can once again submit themselves to the judgement of
the people.

Many of us will return to the second democratic Parliament. Others will not
return to his hallowed institution, whether because of the electorate's
judgement on our parties, or because of our own choice, or because of the
imperatives of advanced age.

For my part, I wish to say that it has been a profound privilege to be
accountable to this Parliament.

Though there is sadness in leave-taking, I am filled with contentment by the
sounds of voices that I have heard in the many debates that I have attended in
this National Assembly, in the Senate, and in its successor, the National
Council of Provinces.

Yesterday's debate on issues affecting Afrikaners and other communities was
no exception. Amongst the principles which the liberation movement pursued from
the beginning of negotiations is that out of any debate we must emerge stronger
and more united, and that there should be no winners or losers.

Deputy President Thabo Mbeki, whom we all expect to be the President of South
Africa, exemplifies this approach which is critical to the unity of our country.
I call on all to give their support to his leadership, across all political
parties.

His and other voices are those of a new generation of leaders that are
emerging in answer to new historical challenges.

They are the voices of the good men and women who exist in all communities
and all parties, and who define themselves as leaders by their capacity to
identify the issues that unite us as a nation.

Together, we must continue our efforts to turn our hopes into reality.

The long walk continues.

Ndlelanhle! Mooi loop! Tsela tshweu!