Decentralisation and constitutionalism in Africa: A comparative analysis of South Africa and Zimbabwe

Since the early 1990s, the move towards decentralisation has been given prominence in African constitutions. Countries that embarked on ambitious decentralisation processes had to make the necessary constitutional reforms. The emergence and proliferation of constitutional entrenchment of decentralisation in Africa was long overdue and thus necessitated by the popular widespread discontent expressed against leaders who ‘personalize power and concentrate it within a privileged clique in the capital city’. While stifling the inroads of liberal democracy, authoritarian rulerships, single-party state systems and military dictatorships contributed immensely to the downward trajectory of political development in post-colonial Africa. Evidently, the intent and purpose for the quest to consolidate the complementary relationship between decentralisation and constitutionalism is aimed at domesticating the Leviathan – the untrammeled ruler. Thus, this paper draws a comparative study on South Africa and Zimbabwe. Both the 1996 Constitution of South Africa, and the 2013 newly adopted Constitution of Zimbabwe, which are the supreme laws of each country, provide for decentralised systems of government. These constitutions establish government at three levels – national, provincial and local. South Africa has a multi-sphere system of government operating in accordance with a quasi-federal state structure, whereas Zimbabwe’s multi-tier system of government functions within the parameters of a decentralised unitary state structure. In spite of the fact that both countries have adopted decentralised forms of government in order to seek solutions to the challenges they faced, the ramifications of having different state structures and systems as per their constitutional frameworks inevitably warrant that the implementation of decentralisation in South Africa and Zimbabwe are on separate and distinct planes. While the state of decentralisation and constitutionalism has made significant strides in South Africa, contrastingly, since the adoption of the new Constitution in 2013, devolution has not yet been fully implemented in Zimbabwe.