By Duncan Harford
The attempt by the National Party to build a "new vision" for itself began floundering barely a month after NP leader F.W. de Klerk launched the new NP in Pretoria on February 2.
De Klerk launched the "new" party by opening a new headquarters in Pretoria and announcing the resignation from cabinet of former constitutional development and provincial affairs minister Roelf Meyer, to become the party's secretary general.
Meyer's job would be to build the new party through strengthening NP structures and making it more appealing to black South Africans. De Klerk said the NP was aiming to win over the majority of South Africans around "core Christian values".
The launch itself illustrated the inherent pitfalls of the task. The new Nats were there, led by Western Cape housing minister Gerald Morkel, who doubled as master of ceremonies. There was the former ANC exile David Chuenyane, new cabinet minister John Mavuso, Senator David Malatsi and Gauteng provincial MP Vusumuszi Vincent Thusi.
But the relics from the old National Party were also there: former defence minister Magnus Malan, now on trial for murder; former law and order minister Adriaan Vlok; former constitutional development minister Gerrit Viljoen; not to mention former health minister Rina Venter, integrally involved in a just-launched conservative front for the preservation of Afrikaner privilege.
There lies the NP's dilemma. It is a party whose support base demands that it maintain as many of the vestiges of apartheid privilege as possible. Since the April 1994 election, it has doggedly stuck by that objective.
The NP wants to attract black voters, yet its policies are diametrically opposed to their interests. The NP is asking South Africa's majority to vote for it, yet it continues to resist democratic transformation.
How will the NP deal with this contradiction? Will the new NP ever be able to come out and condemn racist behaviour such as that shown by the Potgietersrus Primary School's governing body which under the ruse of "cultural rights" attempted to exclude black children? Will it continue to talk of equality, yet resist any effective measures to achieve it?
The present is not a good time for the NP. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission — whose task of uncovering the crimes carried out in the name of defending apartheid is beginning to gain momentum — will be damaging to the NP. Already the country is beginning to get a glimpse of the extent to which political violence in South Africa over the last decade was engineered by senior members of the former National Party government.
The NP faces an election in the Cape Town metropolitan area on May 29, where it will be seeking to curb the swing in the rest of the Western Cape "coloured" vote towards the ANC. After two democratic elections, it has still failed to capture any meaningful share of the African vote.
The month since the launch of the "new" National Party has seen an exodus of leadership. The decision by the NP's deputy speaker, Bhadra Ranchod, to leave party politics in favour of a diplomatic posting is seen as a sign of growing disillusionment within the NP.
Perhaps more damaging was the resignation from cabinet of welfare minister Abe Williams after his home and offices were raided by the Office for Serious Economic Offences. The departure of Williams, who is alleged to be involved in corruption in the administration of Western Cape pensions, will have a negative impact on the NP's Cape Town election hopes.
The concerns of the NP faithful cannot have been eased either by the imminent departure from politics of Constitutional Assembly deputy chairperson Leon Wessels, the resignation of Tobie Meyer as justice deputy minister and the resignation of KwaZulu/Natal NP leader George Bartlett.
The NP has yet to explain the key elements of its "core Christian values" and what would make them so appealing to the majority of South Africans. It has yet to explain also why, in a country with a multiplicity of faiths and religions, the NP has chosen to adopt so-called Christian values to the exclusion of all others.
[Abridged from the March issue of Mayibuye, journal of the African National Congress.]