THENEWSOUTHAFRICA
his two deputies, the cabinet contained sixteen Africans, eight Whites
(two of them ANC members), and six Indians or Coloureds. Especially sig-
nificant appointments were those of Buthelezi as minister of home affairs;
Joe Modise, former commander of the ANC guerrilla force Umkhonto we
Sizwe, as minister of defense; and Joe Slovo as minister of housing. It was
also an inexperienced cabinet. As Mandela himself admitted, many ANC
members were "men and women who have been taken literally from the
bush and without previous training ...
have been asked to run the gov-
ernment of such a highly developed country as South Africa." 13
In the following years, the ANC consolidated its power and appointed
supporters to crucial offices. In 1996, it had the upper hand over an in-
creasingly demoralized National party in the negotiations leading to the
enactment of a permanent constitution. This document replaced the 1994
interim document and was enacted by both houses of the national parlia-
ment sitting together as a Constituent Assembly. The constitution was ap-
proved by an overwhelming majority of 421
to 2, with 10 abstentions.!"
It had been the subject of extended public debate, in which the National
party and the IFP tried unsuccessfully to obtain greater powers for the