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project” into law and reality. This group is itself divided between the chairs ofthe most active committees and their active rank and file, and the presidingofficers of the Assembly, i.e. the Speaker and Deputy Speaker, Chief ANCwhip, etc. The former is probably more inclined than the latter to expandingthe power of the legislature, particularly with respect the Assembly’s capacityfor effective oversight of the executive branch because effective oversight is amechanism to insure the implementation of legislation passed. This group isalso more likely to decentralise power within the Assembly to the portfoliocommittees. Conversely, the inclinations of the presiding officers are to focusmore on the passage of laws than on oversight, and less likely to challenge theexecutive.A second and smaller group of “reformers” are those activists within theopposition who believe that accountable government and the future of SouthAfrican democracy require a more powerful legislature. Their perspective ofthe executive is inherently adversarial, and they seek to check its power. Insum, and as true elsewhere, e.g. Kenya and Ghana, the evolution of thelegislature into an institution with the potential for exercising countervailingpower will most likely occur when there is a coalition for such that bridges thedivide between the ruling and opposition parties. That coalition has yet toemerge in South Africa as a cohesive group. The basic elements are there, butwhen such a group comes together, it will be a function of the realignment ofSouth Africa’s political parties, the outcomes of future elections, and thus thechanging composition of Parliament itself.25