Challenges for parliament in South Africa

It can well be argued that parliamentary democracy came to South Africa little more than a decade ago, when a parliamentary system based upon universal suffrage was established in a bicameral national parliament and in nine unicameral provincial assemblies. Whether or not the parliament of the new system was the dominant institution of the new democracy remains an issue. Assessing the nature of parliament's relationship with executive power must involve an assessment of the political context that envelopes both, and in South Africa an important aspect of that context is the particular way that the party has bound executive and parliamentary offices together. But when a party is as dominant as the ANC, questions about its internal democracy require even more attention than might be needed in an older and more widely understood system of parliamentary government.