The relaunch of the Afrikaner Volksfront appears to be little more than a damp squib, reports Jan Taljaard
THE once-influential Afrikaner Volksfront (AVF) — relaunched last weekend after its demise in the wake of the April election — has been dismissed as “the Conservative Party in disguise”.
At a press conference held to launch the “restructured” AVF, AVF president and Conservative Party leader Dr Ferdi Hartzenberg reinforced the view that the AVF has little future as an independent and viable power bloc.
The AVF’s newly elected executive committee is dominated by prominent CP members. The leadership also omitted to divulge the names of any of its “more than 30 member organisations”. Freedom Front spokesman Chris Landman reacted immediately by calling the organisation “the CP in disguise”.
This year the CP has already had to contend with criticism from within its own ranks on the issue. Delegates to CP congresses have accused the party of keeping an unnecessary and expensive duplication of the party alive.
Those in favour of the continued existence of the AVF defended it by saying a representative umbrella body of Afrikaner parties was necessary. It was with this umbrella organisation in mind that the AVF was last Saturday “restructured” and a new executive elected.
Dr Willie Snyman, also deputy leader of the CP, was elected deputy president of the AVF. Among the other seven members of the executive were Daan Nolte, former CP MP; Koos Kemp, CP spokes-man and former CP town council member; and Fanie du Venage, CP youth leader.
It was a far cry from the heady pre-election days when the AVF was widely regarded as the biggest threat to the transitional process.
When General Constand Viljoen and colleagues such as General Tienie Groenewald left the AVF to establish the Freedom Front, the organisation was left rudderless, allowing the CP to establish total sway over the organisation.
The CP takeover started in January this year when control of the organisation was wrested from the generals at a heated mass meeting attended by thousands of emotional rightwingers. On that day the CP managed to get all its MPs elected to the executive, bringing the AVF under its virtual control.
Under the leadership of Viljoen and other former generals, the AVF had made major strides towards rightwing unity, combining almost all the paramilitary and political forces of the disgruntled right. Several factors eventually led to Viljoen stepping down from his executive position — the most important being the ill-fated rightwing excursion into Bophuthatswana under AVF command.
The maverick role of the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging inside the organisation and serious divisions between AVF supporters on the issue of participation in the elections eventually led to its demise.
In a first attempt to regroup after the elections, the AVF/CP established the so-called Volksrepubliek Werkkomitee (VWK) to “gather all relevant information and to put the ideal of Afrikaner self-determination into practice”.
Hartzenberg said on Saturday that the VWK was active and that its first reports would be made public early next year. But it is widely seen as a knee-jerk CP reaction to the establishment of the government-sanctioned Volkstaat Council, which Viljoen supports.
The Weekly Mail & Guardian has obtained the list of the AVF’s affiliates, which does contain some notable organisations outside the CP sphere of influence. They include Carel Boshoff’s Volkswag and Afstig, all-white trade unions in the metal industries, Transnet and the postal service, and the Transvaal and Free State agricultural unions. Boere Krisis Aksie, long regarded as loyal to Viljoen, also forms part of the AVF’s interest group on security matters.
The aim of the restructured AVF will be to regain the freedom of the Boer nation, Hartzenberg said.
In one aspect, it appears to be in step with the rest of South Africa: according to a statement handed out at the meeting, one in every three AVF regional representatives will in future have to be a woman.