Marion Edmunds looks at how the political parties survived the year and the local
This year has proved South African voters prefer the devils they know. Society may be in the throes of social change, but the electorate has hung on doggedly to the politicians it elected on April 27 1994. The local government elections — contrary to speculation — did not redraw the political map. Instead, the results consolidated the positions of all the major parties.
Political analyst Stephen Friedman of the Centre for Policy Studies says it is unusual for voting patterns to be so stable in new democracies. But he points out that the major South African parties have been around for a long time, and allegiance to them goes back decades, if not generations. The ANC has been a political force since 1912, the National Party since the 1920s and Inkatha has been active for at least 20 years.
But it’s not just the electorate which is responsible here — the political parties themselves have remained strangely static under the new dispensation, despite internal
There have been no significant defections between parties, although there were some small shifts at a local level in October as political entrepreneurs sought the best party to get them into office.
In Parliament there has been no movement at all, thanks partly to the anti-defection clause in the interim constitution, which makes crossing the floor tantamount to walking the plank: they lose their parliamentary seat. The anti-defection clause has prevented party political fragmentation, and undermined rebellion within the ranks.
All three major parties in the Cabinet have, however, felt internal stresses and strains. The ANC has had to control its “populists”: Winnie Mandela was demoted and Bantu Holomisa has been scolded back into line. The party has also had to discipline feisty traditionalists: Congress of Traditional Leaders (Contralesa) head Phatekile Holomisa will have to answer to the ANC’s disciplinary committee this month for associating with Inkatha-aligned traditional leaders and calling for a boycott of the November elections.
Most of the controversial South African issues — the death sentence, abortion, moving Parliament from Cape Town, Nedlac — have sparked off internal party arguments, and the parliamentary whips have had to enforce discipline to contain dissent within the ANC
The National Party had a black spring, when the media reported friction between “liberale” and hard-liners. Two factions in the party were identified as one backing Western Cape Premier Hernus Kriel, and another behind the softer-spoken Constitutional Development Minister Roelf Meyer.
Personality clashes aside, the scuffle was about whether the National Party ought to bare its teeth more fiercely in opposition, or whether it should make consensus-seeking its main objective. This question has never been finally resolved, although NP spokesman Marthinus van Schalkwyk says the party is much wiser for having had the debate, ugly though it was.
The National Party, despite new-found wisdom, has made some strategic blunders by not trying hard enough to change the colour of its top leadership. It let slip two opportunities to promote “New Nats”. When a Cabinet post came up, Chris Fismer was selected as Minister of General Affairs. When there was a chance to elect a new provincial leader for the Western Cape, the party opted for the tired, over- worked Dawie de Villiers instead of bringing in a coloured leader. Given this reluctance to welcome blacks and coloureds into top leadership, it is unlikely the party will be able to make significant inroads into black support.
Inkatha Freedom Party secretary-general Ziba Jiyane believes the IFP had “an average year”. He says that the party did well in setting up new branches in Kwazulu-Natal, Gauteng and Mpumalanga provinces, thereby extending grassroots support. However, the political year will not really be over until the Kwazulu-Natal local government elections in March next year.
Jiyane is not sure his party will remain in the GNU until 1999, saying the possibility of withdrawal is “made even more likely by the behaviour of the ANC”.
So the partners of the GNU still sit together in Cabinet, uncomfortable though it may be at times, forming a political core at the centre of the transition. And it is left to the smaller parties in government to play the true opposition. They do not have enough in common to form a front against the three big players, but they are able to find common ground once in a while.
While the Pan Africanist Congress and the African Christian Democratic Party have a voice to complain with, but no strength to mobilise opposition, the Democratic Party and the Freedom Front are political forces, despite their small base in Parliament.
Their styles of opposition are very different. Where DP leader Tony Leon revels in being provocative and challenges the ANC at every turn, Freedom Front leader General Constand Viljoen relies on his friendship with President Nelson Mandela and courteous diplomacy to get his way. While Leon and his nine other parliamentarians tackle the government on every issue on matters of principle, Viljoen and his 13 parliamentarians select the issues that are important to their voters and concentrate their energies on getting what they want through negotiations, often behind the scenes. Both have had some
By now most politicians are on holiday, trying to rest in anticipation of yet another fierce year of political fighting. Preparation for next year’s battles are under way: the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, the budget, the Magnus Malan trial, the war in Kwazulu-Natal, the remaining local government elections, crime and the final Constitution.