Soon you will be able to study to be a Nat politician, reports Marion Edmunds
The National Party is setting up a political academy and its first group of 50 students begin training on August 1.
While the detail of this academy is still under discussion, the shape and concept has been accepted.
An NP official said this week the institution will strive for political and academic credibility, both inside South Africa and internationally, and will rope in top academics from universities all round the country. The students will be politicians from the NP from central, provincial and local government.
In the face of waning executive power, the NP, in a bid to strengthen ties to civil society, is also cosying up to non-governmental organisations (NGOs) as vehicles for mobilising political support.
NP assistant secretary general Marthinus van Schalkwyk confirmed that the NP has mandated many senior members to make contact with NGOs and to hold meetings to find common ground.
“This is a conscious effort to move out into civil society because it is clear, that with specific regard to the black community, the shotgun approach will not work. The black community is well-organised within society and these organisations act as gate-keepers, so it is important for us to include their concerns in our agenda … They must see us as a vehicle,” he said.
The NP has also started to create NGOs as platforms for its views, to provide an echo in civil society for its voice. It’s an old trick used in the early days of NP dominance, with the establishment of the Federasie vir Afrikaanse Kultuur, the Voortrekkers and, secretly, the Broederbond.
The African National Congress also has a long tradition of using NGOs to express its policies. NGOs, unions and churches became its vehicles when its political voice was silenced from the 1960s. The ANC still has power in this sphere, although NGO support is not as fervent as it was.
Last month, the NP announced the creation of a Human Rights Trust chaired by Professor Johan Kruger, a constitutional expert involved in the constitution-making process. Its mandate is to provide victims of human rights abuse with legal and financial assistance, to run public education campaigns, and to monitor political parties.
Further developments include launching the African Dialogue Group, which links nine political movements from seven African countries, all of which state support for the principle of liberal democracy. The parties include the NP, the Democratic Turnhalle Alliance (DTA) of Namibia, the Ford Kenya Party and the Forum Party of Zimbabwe.
Van Schalkwyk said the party was looking at plugging into international networks as well and had become affiliated to the International Democratic Union. Other members included political parties like the Christian Democratic Union in Germany, Australia’s Liberal Party and the Republican Party in the United States.
Professor Willie Breytenbach of the University of Stellenbosch’s political science department says he regards the NP’s civil society strategy with scepticism.
“The two most important components of civil society are the churches and the trade unions. While the NP is plugged into the Dutch Reformed Church, which is mainly white and coloured, it has no links with the trade unions.”
Civil society groupings which used to uphold the ideology and spirit of the NP can no longer rely on the NP to carry the candle of Afrikaner nationalism at Parliament as it did in the past. In fact, the Freedom Front is the party that is able to lobby their brand of Afrikaner nationalism, because it has dedicated itself to protecting that particular minority group.
“The NP has a multiracial future in mind, so it wants to plug into the institutions that can feed it the 73% support of society that it does not have. It will have its work cut out in order to achieve that one, given the NPs track record.” said Breytenbach this week.