Rocky’s on a roll, and he’s doing his damnedest to shake off the moss of his past, reports Stefaans BrUmmer
ROCKY MALEBANE-METSING — coup maker, would-be provincial premier, ANC ally turned thorn — has reinvented his role in politics.
The vehicle for the emergence of the new Rocky is the “triple-P”, his People’s Progressive Party, launched last month after the ANC in North-West Province ousted him when it could take the leadership squabbles between him and provincial premier Popo Molefe no more.
And the PPP, Malebane-Metsing said in an interview this week, is going for national power. No longer does he want to be seen as representing solely the Baphokeng tribe which is his traditional power base, no longer does he see the North-West as first prize.
“We are formed as a party for the sole purpose of governance. We are not a pressure group or a protest movement. We are going to participate in elections, local, provincial and national, to take part in the processes of governing the country.”
The message Malebane-Metsing wants to be heard is that his party is a “credible alternative” to the “omelette” government of national unity. “We are a party of the new South Africa, free of the opponents and perpetrators of the old order.”
Mind you, Malebane-Metsing is not one to shun the perpetrators should they add momentum to his roll. Alliances will be considered, provided, of course, the PPP maintains its identity and principles. “Like in all democracies, we would welcome approaches. We will sit down even with our arch-rivals to iron out
Those arch-rivals include Lucas Mangope, the former president of Bophutatswana whom Rocky probably would have ousted in his February 1988 coup were it not for the intervention of the South African Defence Force. His stance on Mangope is softer these days. “Mandela criticised De Klerk to the extent that is was utterly impossible for them to talk at one stage, but for the sake of South Africa De Klerk is his deputy president. How many atrocities were committed by the National Party compared to Mangope? … We will consider alliances and co-operate with whomever comes.”
The PPP has had approaches from other parties, Malebane-Metsing confirms. Who they are, he won’t say.
So the theme of the new Malebane-Metsing and the PPP is that the past be consigned to the past. “I want to put forward to the people this in respect of the coup: I am prepared to reconcile with my enemies of the past and they should be my friends. The people of South Africa must recognise that this man is great, he is greater than that incident, he is willing to reconcile.”
Yet Malebane-Metsing is not all new. The PPP, to start with, is an old name. From the early Eighties he led a party under that same name that tried to fight Mangope’s system “from within” with what he claims was the co-operation of the ANC. The old PPP was only disbanded in 1993. The coup attempt followed the party’s 1987 defeat in elections he charges were
Malebane-Metsing says he has accepted that the provincial leadership went to Molefe in spite of a wide assumption the ANC had groomed him as leader. “I don’t know whether it was an assumption. It was something I believe was a foregone conclusion … I was popularly backed and that was never in question. But sometimes democracy takes a turn and you cannot continue to blame the course of history.” But the way he was expelled still evokes bitterness. “That was very unfortunate, the villification, the campaigns against me, the sheer sidelining of a comrade in the same organisation. That was pathetic, a sheer lack of adult behaviour.”
Any party needs a political platform, and Malebane- Metsing says he has one ready. It will be based on national pride (where “none of us abroad should have the right to criticise the country”), true democracy (where one can cross the floor without losing your seat in parliament or provincial assemblies, as happened to him), and economic reconstruction.
The RDP, says Malebane-Metsing, is weak. A “social market economy”, like in Gernmany or the Scandinavian countries, is the only option. The state machinery and control over industry should be harnessed, like the National Party did after 1948 to boost the economic position of the Afrikaner, to ensure a wider distribution of wealth.
The PPP will also be strong on federalism. “One cannot have a legislative assembly, popularly elected, and a prime minister, and they have nothing to do.” Strong federalism, of course, will also benefit the PPP should it manage to take only the North-West, but that Malebane-Metsing does not say.
His roll, Malebane-Metsing believes, will take him across the country, and public meetings in the coming days and weeks will start the process. “The ANC will be forced, because of our popularity, to follow our trail, and they’ll be forced to bring their president to get back half of the people we got.”