Marion Edmunds
ROELF MEYER set off into the political wilderness this week to seek a black Messiah to lead a new movement capable of challenging the African National Congress in 1999, and salvaging the moderate faction of a fragmenting National Party.
Talent-spotting for a new black leader, Meyer told the Mail & Guardian this week, would be one of his main tasks – one he can now focus on after effectively abandoning leadership of the NP to hardliners.
He is accompanied in his quest by five trusted moderates: Sheila Camerer, Paulina Cupido, Nic Koornhof, John Mavuso and David Malatsi.
They are to move around the country, talking to influential figures, church leaders and businessmen to attract those who want to create a strong opposition to the ANC to prevent it dominating politics in the 21st century.
Meyer was freed up for the task on Wednesday when party leader FW de Klerk stripped him of his secretary general post.
The NP has already consulted Professor Frederick van Zyl Slabbert, a man experienced in opposition politics, for advice.
This week he described the NP’s dream of a new black moderate opposition leader as the stuff of “political fantasies”.
Van Zyl Slabbert believes Meyer’s journey into the unknown may presage the end of the NP, with a loss of its current voters to the left and the right, and a small core in the Western Cape hanging on to the hardline attitudes of conservative whites and coloureds.
If his search to find a great black hope fails, Meyer may have to lead the new movement himself. But commentators doubt he has the right touch.
“He is a good man, perhaps too much of a gentleman, and he has done an important job. But I don’t think he has the personality to be the leader of a party … they don’t need a new leader or a new name – they need a new nature,” political scientist Professor Sampie Terreblanche said.
Meyer’s attempts to change the party’s “nature” have been hampered by the success of his colleagues in the Western Cape, under Kriel’s leadership.
Kriel and his allies are appealing to a segregated audience – undermining Meyer’s real chances of setting up a multi-racial future for the party.
By sending Meyer out – or allowing him to be pushed – De Klerk is forcing his party to speak in two voices: one of sectoral interest, the other of a multi-racial opposition. The NP has had great experience doing the former, but very little in articulating the latter.
What must be even more upsetting to Meyer is that the Democratic Party and the Inkatha Freedom Party have appeared unsympathetic to the notion of a new movement, preferring instead to flirt with the ANC.
Meyer remains optimistic: “The basic point is the need to make a start at forming a new political movement, to take an initiative, and there are far more signs now that people are interested than they were. Success breeds success, we must get the ball rolling.”