Dale Carnegie would have been proud of FW de Klerk’s performance at the National Party’s weekend congress, writes Gaye Davis
NATIONAL Party leader FW de Klerk is credited with being something of a magician among politicians, capable of producing a rabbit from a hat. The analogy was particularly apt at the opening of his party’s federal congress in Cape Town at the weekend.
Wreathed in artificial smoke woven with multi- coloured beams of light, he mounted a gleaming white podium to stand, flanked by gigantic video screens which projected his image into the far corners of the city’s cavernous Good Hope Centre, and unveil his anti-poverty programme, the NP’s alternative to the Reconstruction and Development Programme.
De Klerk’s carefully timed entry, led by blue- and red-skirted drum majorettes in a welter of shapely legs, spinning maces and twirling South African and party flags, was accompanied by thundering music of epic proportions — the high point of a programme that had seen a troupe of Coons strutting with guitars and trumpets, an all-black choir sing Shosholoza and a rendition of When the Saints Come Marching In by a 15-piece band.
The arrival of De Klerk, hand in hand with his wife, Marike (who the day before had been re-elected, unopposed, as head of the NP’s Women’s Action), brought the crowd of several thousand to its feet. Many had travelled to the centre from their Cape Flats homes in the buses parked outside the building: their numbers must have been reassuring to the leader of a party trying to shed its segregationist past and present itself as a non- racial “Opposition with a Mission”.
“FW de Klerk we love you,” chanted a group of middle-aged women. The show surpassed anything they could have seen on TV that night, and they were dazzled by it.
“The National Party is our party,” they shouted in agreement when De Klerk accused the African National Congress of losing its grip, of failing to create jobs and act against crime, of not being able to rein in its allies the Congress of South African Trade Unions and the South African Communist Party and of pushing the RDP on to the backburner.
“The fact is that the RDP is floundering,” he said. “The ANC lured millions of voters into voting for them on the basis of the RDP. And now that they are in power, they are failing to manage it as a comprehensive and cohesive anti-poverty action plan.”
Surprise, surprise! The NP had decided to address the issue with a new initiative — “an alternative, comprehensive, meaningful and workable anti-poverty strategy”. Experts would help draw up a basic framework. There would be an extended process of consultation at grassroots level within the party — and simultaneously, “intensive consultations within other forums and community-based organisations and non-governmental organisations”.
There was no hint of irony as De Klerk spelled out a plan to engage and encourage the kind of grassroots mobilisation and organisation his party, as the government, had spent so much energy trying to destroy.
He offered little by way of substance: this would come when the NP convened, within about nine months, a National Anti-Poverty Conference to plan the way forward and properly design the vehicle to achieve the party’s vision of “a new and mighty political movement based on shared, Christian values and beliefs which would shatter old ethnic and racial patterns and “redefine the political map of South Africa”.
Spurned by political parties in his bid to rally a coalition of opposition forces, De Klerk and NP pundits will be focusing on more receptive, middle- level leadership and through it, people on the ground.
“There is a growing urgency at the grass-roots level of all political parties about the need for politicians to rise above old divides and to co- operate in a strategy to stop the rot in our beautiful country,” he said.
To the strains of We are riding the rainbow, De Klerk stood flanked by his party executive and officials. As he left the hall amid a welter of drum-majorettes and flags, the crowd made a rush for the aisles to get close: “Ons vader (our father),” screamed one woman.
After the slick opening razzmatazz, reality set in over the subsequent two days as delegates pondered discussion documents and broke up into groups to consider such burning issues as whether or not the party should change its name.
It was in these forums that it became clear the party has its work cut out for it — for how will it bind disillusioned ANC and floating voters into a new non-racial dream if it is still blighted by the nightmare of racism?
“Inside the party there are some racists — there are people who think they are better than others,” said a Western Cape delegate. His comment was couched as an observation about the party’s lack of organisers at grassroots level in the townships — but its thrust was the racism still felt by new party members.
“We haven’t got proper people to organise. If we say we are going to start an anti-poverty campaign all the different groups and different languages should be used.”
Changing the party’s name got an overwhelming thumbs down. “It’s not necessary for the NP to change its name — we should change our attitudes to one another,” said another delegate.
Lack of capacity at grassroots level to effect mass mobilisation, the need to organise “our own structures to operate behind enemy lines” (this from a former ANC branch chairperson), lack of reportbacks to ordinary members and the invisibility of NP leaders in the communities the party wants to win over were the dominant concerns expressed from the floor.
There was also some resentment that sacrifices by party members who risked limb and property organising for the NP were not properly appreciated, that there was insufficient support for those experiencing intimidation. For them, a name change would translate as an admission of defeat.
De Klerk was swift to address these issues in his closing speech, paying special tribute to the “guts and courage” of those for whom being an NP leader meant real physical danger. Nor would the party change its name as a mere “PR exercise”. However, when the day dawned that NP numbers were augmented “by a wave of new support moving away from the ANC and some other parties … [a name change] will be on the agenda and then we’ll decide … with proper consultation”.
In the meantime, he urged the party faithful to “market and sell the NP, increase its outlets”. They should “reach out, interact … sit down and convince the customer and close the political deal”.
It was inspirational. De Klerk sounded less like a politician than a motivational speaker at a Dale Carnegie crash course, setting the 2004 general elections as the target for take-over and 1999 as the bridgehead.
The country could do with a powerful, credible opposition. But it will take more than smoke and laser shows to develop one.