THE POLITICAL-TERRITORIAL STRUCTURE OF THE SOUTH AFRICAN REPUBLIC: THE FEATURES OF ETHNIC ORGANIZATION OF PROVINCES

The author examines the criteria chosen by the state for the political and territorial organization of the Republic of South Africa after the fall of the apartheid regime. Based on the historical and analytical approaches, the ethnic structure of the South African provinces and their formation in the colonial period are considered. According to the author’s point of view, despite the fact that after the fall of the apartheid regime the South African Republic had chosen the policy of combating race and ethnic segregation, the usage of historical criteria to the formation of new provinces led to the emergence of ethnically homogeneous territories. Such ethnic organization of the provinces let us investigate a constitutional-legal reality of the Republic of South Africa through the prism of its multi-ethnic nature.