Resistance and Extra Parliamentary Activities
Responses to the 1983 Constitution

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There were varying reactions from liberation movements and from within the National Party when Prime Minister PW Botha announced the Tricameral parliament and reforms to the Constitution of 1983. These reforms tried to restructure the white racial face of parliament to give a message of government's willingness to provide a space for political representation of other races in parliamentry politics. However, this space was viewed as both meaningless for making a real impact on directing the affairs of the country as well as dangerous in the divisions it created between the Indian and Coloured and African race groups. The Tricameral parliament granted some representation to Indian and Coloured communities into the national parliament. These race groups were allocated separate race tiers from the House of Assembly that represented whites. The House of Delegates was created for Indian inclusion and a House of Representatives for Coloured inclusion.

There was an angry reaction to the proposal from both those who did not support the government and from within the National Party. A breakaway group of those strongly opposed to the idea of racial integration formed the Conservative Party. The Indian and Coloured community also refused to participate in a segregated national parliament where the House of Assembly had more power and from which. African people were excluded. Instead the tricameral proposal had the effect of uniting millions of South Africans in protests. It afforded the apartheid resistance movements a good opportunity to educate and gather supporters against the Government using the unfair proposal to demonstrate the injustice of the state.

Source A: A protest against Tricameral parliament

The United Democratic Front formed in August 1983 shortly after the proposed constitution as a popular coalition to head the resistance efforts around the country. The UDF launched popular national campaigns to challenge and destabilise the apartheid regime. Under its umbrella, students, workers, women , professionals etc were all brought together to fight side by side for a free country

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Learning Outcomes 1: The learner will be expected to demonstrate an ability to work independently, formulating enquiry questions and gathering, analysing, interpreting and evaluating relevant evidence to answer the questions

Activity 1

Study Source A