Consociationalist South Africa

Given the ethnic, linguistic and cultural divisions of the population of South Africa, given the political criticism of Apartheid, what do you think of a constitutional arrangement of the country roughly parallel to a "National Pact".

  1. The Union of South Africa being a country of European, Bantu and Coloured peoples.
  2. There shall be a tricameral parliament, consisting of a European, Bantu and Coloured house. Its members are to be elected in separate constituencies (the European parallel to districts of the Cape colony, Natal, Orange Free State, Transvaal; the Bantu respecting linguistic lines moreless)
  3. The European category would include the Boers and Englishmen
  4. The Bantu category would include: Zulu, Swazi, Xhosa, Venda, Tswana, Tsonga, Sotho, Ndebele
  5. The Coloured category would include Cape Coloureds, Khoisans, Griquas, Indians and Other Asian
  6. The President would be always a European
  7. The Prime Minister would always be a Bantu
  8. The Speaker of the Parliament would be always a Coloured
  9. The Constitutional court would be occupied proportionally by Europeans, Bantus and Coloureds in a ratio of 3:4:3.
  10. Each chamber may veto any law.
 
It's not a bad idea, but it's completely impossible to have implemented, let alone last for any substantial amount of time. The most likely time for this to be implemented is at the end of Apartheid with the government extracting concessions like this from the ANC. But I don't see the ANC accepting these terms as they really have no reason to do so. Plus, while this might allay some protesters in the West, it doesn't get rid of the fact that the White population still holds a third of the political power while being, at most, 12% of the population.
 
Well you might get traditional leaders to buy in but the ANC was always a hegemonist party explicitly committed to the National Democratic Revolution, which was Marxist in its proscriptions and goals.

In addition, Black Consciousness movements that might have supported this took a more explicitly PanAfricanist lens early on and therefore this idea is going to get very little rank and file black buy in outside perhaps Natal.

It is true that the whites were looking for a way out without majority rule, and that the ideological support for Apartheid and its more crude baaskap variants was pretty much shaky after Verwoerd's death and certainly after the collapse of allied governments in the frontline states. So you might see some white support for this, and likely some colored support as well.

I think though that the post 94 crimewave more than anything is what secured the ANCs rule for good because of the demographic changes that it helped to kick off. In this variant, I think such a crimewave might be more political in nature than what was in OTL a social phenomenon and a failure of governance and that could lead to more political violence as a result.
 
In 1912 Whites were 22%.
In 1980 they were 16%.
Today they are 9%, like Coloured. Blacks are the remaining 80%, with 2% of Asian minority.
So idea is good but it's disproportionate to assign the Presidency to Whites.
In Lebanon Christians (Maronite and Ortodhox) were almost half of population while an other half was Muslim (Sunni and Shia), with a consistent Druze minority, so the President is Maronite Christian, the Prime Minister is Sunni Muslim, the Speaker of Parliament is Shia Muslim, the Deputy Prime Minister and the Deputy Speaker are Orthodox and the Chief of Staff of Armed Forces is Druze.
In South Africa there are:
Blacks 80%
(Zulu 26%
Sesotho 22%
Xhosa 15%
Tswana 6%
Others 11%)
White 9%
Coloured 9%
Asian 2%
Subsequently I can see at maximum:
President-Black Zulu
Prime Minister-White (with a majority of black members of Cabinet)
Speaker of Parliament-Black Sesotho
Deputy Prime Minister-Black Xhosa
Deputy Speaker-Black Tswana or Others
Chief of Staff of Armed Forces- Coloured
 
An interesting idea in the context of it being an alternative to apartheid or as a possibility for a South Africa after it, but it runs into a major problem in that it wouldn't appeal to the apartheid state until it was much too late for it to have any chance at all of success.

Also, you have a huge problem in South Africa's Indian-descent population. I can't see them being too keen on being mixed in with the Cape Coloreds, at least at first.
 
In 1912 Whites were 22%.
In 1980 they were 16%.
Today they are 9%, like Coloured. Blacks are the remaining 80%, with 2% of Asian minority.
So idea is good but it's disproportionate to assign the Presidency to Whites.
In Lebanon Christians (Maronite and Ortodhox) were almost half of population while an other half was Muslim (Sunni and Shia), with a consistent Druze minority, so the President is Maronite Christian, the Prime Minister is Sunni Muslim, the Speaker of Parliament is Shia Muslim, the Deputy Prime Minister and the Deputy Speaker are Orthodox and the Chief of Staff of Armed Forces is Druze.
In South Africa there are:
Blacks 80%
(Zulu 26%
Sesotho 22%
Xhosa 15%
Tswana 6%
Others 11%)
White 9%
Coloured 9%
Asian 2%
Subsequently I can see at maximum:
President-Black Zulu
Prime Minister-White (with a majority of black members of Cabinet)
Speaker of Parliament-Black Sesotho
Deputy Prime Minister-Black Xhosa
Deputy Speaker-Black Tswana or Others
Chief of Staff of Armed Forces- Coloured
Agreed. Given the demographics, should you have a power sahring based on language, establishing a threefold division into West Germanic (Boers, Englishmen, Griquas, Cape Coloureds, Khoisan, Indians, South African Muslims, essentially anyone who is not Bantu), Nguni (Zulu, Xhosa, Ndebele, Swazi) and Sotho-Tswana (Tswana, Sesotho, Tsonga and Venda). While the Tsonga and Venda are not technically part of that group, they fall in the non-Nguni Bantu umbrella.
The result: gives Bantu two thirds of power. Now you can take my first draft, and instead of European write West Germanic, instead of Bantu write Nguni and instead of Coloured write Sotho-Tswana.
My reasoning behind the president being a West Germanic speaker is the fact, that it were mostly the Europeans who used to hold the statehood in the area : Cape Colony, Stellaland, Vrystaad, Transvaal, Utrecht, Natalia... all of them were run by Europeans.
 
Well the Tricameral Constitution was a half arsed attempt at this - obviously excluding the Black population. By which time of course the ANC and other movements were dead set against the idea.
You would need it to happen much earlier for it to have any hope of working and there is no way it would be introduced earlier so
 
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