protections for so-called group rights. The ANC viewed such proposals as attempts to dilute majority rule and possibly to allow the maintenance of de facto apartheid in the country's minority-majority regions.Perhaps even more obstructive were disagreements about how the constitution itself was to be devised and passed into law. The ANC's enduring proposal had been that the task should be entrusted to a constituent assembly, democratically elected under the principle of one man, one vote. Although it recognised that the white minority would not abide a constitution-making process without any guarantees of its outcomes, the ANC believed that the pre-agreement of constitutional principles at CODESA should suffice for such guarantees. On the other hand, the NP held that the constitution should be negotiated among parties, in a forum resembling CODESA, and then adopted by the existing (and NP-dominated) legislature – both to protect minority interests, and to ensure legal continuity. Alternatively, if a constituent assembly was unavoidable, it insisted that approval of the new constitution should require the support of a three-quarters majority in the assembly, rather than the two-thirds majority proposed by the ANC. Thereafter, it sought a transitional system of government under a compulsory coalition, with the cabinet drawn equally from each of the three major parties and a presidency that would rotate among them. The IFP also opposed the notion of a democratically elected constituent assembly, although for different reasons. As a result of this deadlock, with consensus evidently out of reach, discussions stalled and the plenary was dissolved on the second day of meetings, 16 May – although the parties reaffirmed their commitment to the Declaration of Intent, and expected to re-convene once the major disagreements had been resolved outside the plenary. Breakdown of negotiations Return to mass action: June–August 1992 With CODESA stalled, the ANC announced its return to a programme of "rolling mass action", aimed at consolidating – and decisively demonstrating – the level of popular support for its agenda in the constitutional negotiations. The programme began with a nationwide stay-away on 16 June, the anniversary of the 1976 Soweto uprising. It was overshadowed when later that week, on 17–18 June 1992, 45 residents of Boipatong, Gauteng were killed, primarily by Zulu hostel dwellers, in the Boipatong massacre. Amid broader suspicions of state-sponsored so-called third force involvement in the ongoing political violence, the ANC accused the government of complicity in the attack and announced,