On August 7, New National Party leader Marthinus van Schalkwyk announced that he would be joining the African National Congress and encouraged other NNP members to do likewise. Although the NNP will still exist — the ANC allowing dual membership — the move is widely seen as the demise of the former party of apartheid. From Durban, community activist Saranel Benjamin reports on the implications of the bizzare deal.
The curtain has finally fallen on the National Party. New or old, it just couldn't transform itself enough to create its own niche in the South African political terrain.
It is, however, very clear that the National Party, even with its changed formula of new name, new colours, new leaders, never thought that the sun would go down on it. And now that it has, one isn't too sure (even though there is relief for every South African who experienced the atrocities of apartheid) whether this was the homicide of the Nats or whether the National Party died of sheer stupidity.
Either way, this has given the African National Congress (ANC) pretty much an unadulterated grip on South Africa's political terrain. It has successfully eliminated what was, for over half a century, one of the most significant political actors on the South African stage.
This is but the latest example of how the ANC has effectively diluted any institutionalised political opposition by entering into alliances with smaller, enamoured political parties.
Its only pseudo-concern is the Democratic Alliance (DA), which it needs in order to present South Africa as a democratic country with a legitimate opposition party (even if it is just one) — a role the DA is only too happy to fill. A highly choreographed political stage has been set for the ANC to pursue its neoliberal capitalist agenda of power and wealth accumulation unopposed by any political party.
Ever since F.W. de Klerk, former leader of the National Party and former president of South Africa, decided to un-ban the liberation movements in 1990 and usher in negotiations for an end to the apartheid system, the National Party's core belief has been that it is a party that holds the higher moral political ground. This belief was exaggerated by the fact that De Klerk won a Nobel Peace prize for his actions.
Much of the world seemingly overlooked the fact that the National Party was the architect of apartheid, and responsible for the deaths of thousands and suffering of millions of South Africans through some of the most violent and degrading acts known to humanity. And the Nats believed that the South African public would also overlook it.
Even now, having subjected millions of black people to humiliation, degradation and death for 48 years, De Klerk writes in the local weekend papers that the National Party was a product of its time. According to De Klerk, despite its infamous atrocities, apartheid South Africa developed into the most advanced and "civilised" country in Africa.
Sweeping apartheid under the rug, believing that De Klerk and his National Party were the salvation of oppressed black people in South Africa, gave the Nats an inflated sense of themselves. Winning the province of the Western Cape in the first-ever democratic elections in South Africa in 1994 helped entrench this narcissistic view. In that election the party secured 20% of the national vote, giving it the (false) affirmation it needed.
In 1997, De Klerk stepped down from the National Party leadership and handed over the reigns to his protege van Schalwyk. Known by the Afrikaans moniker, "Kortbroek", Van Schalkwyk took his place in the then 80-year legacy of the National Party. He etched his feeble claim on the party by changing its name and adding a new colour or two. Under Van Schalkwyk, the National Party sought to reform itself by playing conciliatory games with the ANC. It got no more creative than that.
In the 1999 national election, the NNP's support base began to haemorrhage, with the Democratic Party being the main beneficiary. De Klerk publicly stated at the time that this was the result of NNP supporters being unhappy with the conciliatory approach the party was adopting towards the ANC. He felt that the NNP supporters wanted a more rigorous criticism of the ANC.
Yet, even if the "reformed" Nats harboured desires to be the official opposition to the ANC, they were continuously hamstrung by still-fresh memories of their apartheid past, memories the NNP was desperately trying to hide. The fact of the matter was that the NNP could never be seen as the main opposition to the new "boy" on the block: the "black boy" the Nats tried to destroy during apartheid.
Struggling to breathe in the confined space of its dwindling political support, the NNP, desperate to hold on to power in their Western Cape "stronghold", opted for an alliance with the Democratic Party. When that alliance didn't work, the NNP hopped into bed with the ANC.
Although this has made every logical thinking person in the country cringe, the ANC was an ever willing, ever ready bedfellow to the New National Party. This saw the beginning of the end for the NNP. It had just walked into the lair of a party that rivalled its own past political ruthlessness.
Whilst the local South African press and some politicians bemoan the fact that the NNP's dissolution was premature, there are some who feel that giving it an extension of life would have been cruel. Under the continued leadership of Van Schalwyk, the NNP would have suffered as much humiliation as it had poured onto the millions who suffered at its hands under apartheid. Van Schalwyk made the hunt and kill by the ANC so much more easier than even the ANC imagined.
But what does this say about the ANC as a player in this political game? In the ANC's online newsletter, ANC Today, President Thabo Mbeki recently wrote of the NNP's dissolution in an article entitled, "A matter of life and death". In the article, Mbeki spends a lot of time regurgitating the sordid history of the Nats and expounding in great detail on all the bad things they did during their 46-year rule.
He mentions the alliance with the Democratic Party just after the 1999 election and notes that the Democratic Party gave it life, "[opening] its doors to those who refused to redefine themselves as opponents of the system and ideology they had upheld for generations". However, not once in his long-winded history "lesson" does Mbeki mention the alliance that the ANC and the NNP entered into. It's like the elephant in the room — everyone knows its there but won't mention it — much like Mbeki's denialist position on HIV-AIDS.
The ANC, to gain access to power and to secure itself as the dominant political party in South African politics, has slept with almost every major political party, with the exception of the Democratic Alliance (possibly because DA leader Tony Leon, is holding out for a better deal).
In the 1990s, the ANC entered into an alliance with the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) so that it could gain access to political power in the province of KwaZulu-Natal. Without this alliance the ANC didn't stand a chance of getting a foot in the door of that province. Later, it entered into an alliance with the NNP so it could get a foothold into the Western Cape.
Again, without that alliance it would have been impossible to win the majority of the coloured vote in the Western Cape. After the 2004 election, when the ANC didn't win the province of KwaZulu-Natal outright, it entered into alliances with smaller parties that allowed the ANC to scrape through a false victory over the IFP to take political power in the province.
For power, there is nothing the ANC wouldn't do. In its relentless pursuit of power, the ANC has been ruthless and manipulative, amoral and unprincipled. In the process, the ANC has also tried to bury the collective experience and memory of the majority of South Africans. It has become an amorphous political party, willing to change from day to day, from issue to issue, from circumstance to circumstance. In 10 years it has evolved fully from a fighter for the basic human rights of the majority into a modern day political elite with no conscience and a good dollop of schizophrenia to boot. For these reasons, the ANC and its chihuahua alliance partners will no doubt survive for decades to come.
But for poor people across South Africa this means that the ANC, through its myriad alliances, has free reign to make their lives worse. In the two provinces (Western Cape and Kwazulu-Natal) that are now experiencing ANC rule for the first time, the poor and working class are finding that life isn't getting any better. In fact, poverty and state repression have gotten worse.
In Durban, the ANC council's security guards shot and killed a 19-year-old boy, Marcel King, at point blank range, because he was attempting to protect his mother who was trying to stop the council security guards from disconnecting their electricity. Three months later, no arrests have been made. The King family have not been compensated.
This is a clear indication that this is a political party with no conscience, whose connection to the people is getting weaker by the day. And that's what should be remembered as the Nats are swallowed up in the bosom of the ANC — they too, had no conscience and no connection to the people.
From Â鶹´«Ã½ Weekly, August 25, 2004.
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