There is one quarter from which the ANC does want criticism: the opposition parties. But this isn’t happening, writes Marion Edmunds
THE African National Congress believes that South Africa’s collective opposition is doing a terrible job. President Nelson Mandela’s director of communications, Joel Netshitenzhe, argued this week that opposition parties had reduced their focus to concentrate solely on crime and were failing to keep the ANC on its toes with constructive criticism on important issues.
One of the most prominent opposition politicians, Roelf Meyer, has quit formal politics, despairing that the opposition, lacking black substance, can seriously challenge ANC hegemony.
Are Meyer and the ANC right? Are opposition parties out of date and out of step with the new order? What have they achieved in the last three years? Must they realign or band together to survive?
Opposition parties unanimously argue that realignment is impossible as long as the anti-defection clause preventing MPs from crossing the floor holds them to their seats. The proportional representation election system means there is no point banding together because it does not change opposition numbers.
Meyer’s disillusionment with the opposition stems, principally, from an insider’s view of the problems in the National Party. By far the largest opposition party, it has been surprisingly ineffective and consistently on the defensive about matters of principle, the truth commission and its own unity since 1994.
Marthinus van Schalkwyk, the new NP organiser, is the first to admit to the party’s disappointing performance in opposition and is sober about what it can pull off in 1999.
“We are very realistic that it will be impossible for any opposition party, excluding the Inkatha Freedom Party, which has a particular support base, to get millions of blacks to vote for them because the commitment of ANC voters to their party is very very strong,” he says.
Van Schalkwyk shifts the focus back to the NP’s original constituency. He speaks about a process of “consolidation”, following the damaging debates around the truth commission and Meyer’s resignation.
“But I don’t think we are in as bad a state as all that. The ANC has had its Holomisas and we’ve had our Roelf Meyer. We are taking a body blow, particularly in terms of our public image. We need to protect the interests of those voters who entrusted us with their votes and we need to put the ANC on the defensive.”
Van Schalkwyk gives his party seven out of 10 for opposition performance, the same that he gives the Democratic Party. He is frank about the desperate need for an injection of new blood, and that finding it is just as much of a problem as persuading the old guard to let it in.
DP leader Tony Leon is looking greedily over his shoulder at the moderate Afrikaans vote which he needs to capture to increase his parliamentary presence. The DP also realises there is no hope of a mass black vote.
Yet Leon said this week that his party ought to score nine and a half out of 10 for opposition performance.
Certainly it has made a huge impact and noise, despite having only seven MPs in the National Assembly, tackling many controversial issues. And nobody in Parliament irritates ANC members as much as Leon. They pay him that compliment. However, Leon has also endeared himself to President Mandela whose public praise of his talents may raise his stakes a little in black communities where until now he has battled to get a podium, let alone votes.
Leon says the way the DP campaigned in the past was 50 years out of date. The party is not rich but is solvent and Leon believes it offers the best opposition.
The Freedom Front agrees with him – as far as Westminster-style opposition goes.
“If you are playing for the eight o’ clock news, then yes, the DP is very good, but does it really make a difference?,” asks Freedom Front MP Pieter Mulder. “With the Sarafina thing, did Zuma resign? No she did not. We have accepted the reality and for the next 10, if not 15 years, an opposition party will not be able to play the traditional role because of the racial ethnic vote.
“So we in the Freedom Front are not going for numbers but for Afrikaner interests and our strategy is to lobby and negotiate behind the scenes and then we succeed, as we did in getting the amnesty date shifted and cultural self-determination written into the constitution.”
Mulder gives his party eight out of 10. He hopes to gain support from more conservative Afrikaners who feel let down by the NP. Funding is a problem.
Mulder does not believe there will be major changes before 1999:
“I see the opposition parties struggling to position themselves but I don’t see a major realignment. One of the problems is the way the proportional system works because there is no incentive to join forces … I don’t see Roelf Meyer doing it either, because I know it’s very hard to start a new party without funds, without an office and a fax machine … I’ve been there, I know.”
The IFP has not been a strong performer in parliamentary politics. It is said to be financially against the wall, and its white, coloured and Asian members have been increasingly marginalised by the traditionalists.
The chairperson of the parliamentary caucus, Ben Skosana, gives his party’s performance a seven out of 10, arguing that it has been restricted by its position as a partner in the government of national unity. Given its strength in Kwazulu-Natal — a possible bargaining chip – it is likely it could be drawn into a political alliance just before the elections, even possibly with the ANC.
“We do realise that alliances and political coalitions are a reality in politics, but one has to be very prudent to know when to enter into any coalition,” says Skosana.
Anyone wanting opposition black and bolshie can choose between the Pan Africanist Congress and Bantu Holomisa’s consultative conference. Holomisa is the more attractive of the two – he is seeking out pockets of discontented one-time ANC voters, disgruntled public servants, homeland relics and the ethnically aggrieved.
His personal charisma is filling in for the lack of party structures and his uncertain past. But he remains a wild card.
The PAC still needs to be evaluated. It is in the process of pulling up its socks. The new secretary general, Mike Muendane, is frank that performance until now has been poor.
“It’s been awful, absolutely awful. I would give it three out of 10 until the end of last year when we had our conference. Now I would give it between five and eight out of 10.”
Flush with a fistful of new policy positions, he believes that the PAC could claim up to 43% of the vote in 1999. He said the PAC would be talking about more than land in the election campaign but houses, health, education and Africanism as well. In the meantime, the PAC has been a small and silent party in Parliament, with only Patricia de Lille standing out as a person of independent mind.
At the bottom of the pile, the African Christian Democratic Party says it is aiming for 20% of the vote in 1999. It does not expect any alliances, says the Rev Kenneth Meshoe, because policy is based on biblical principles, unlike other parties. He gives his two-member party eight out of 10 for performance. Observers would give it considerably less.
What the opposition lacks in unity and power it makes up for in diversity, eccentricity, ambition – and determination against all odds. Parties have found the political transition difficult, and it is understandable that many opposition members feel disempowered and disgruntled in the face of the ANC alliance.
Roelf Meyer’s departure has perhaps helped to focus their minds on what is really at stake – survival – and the fact that an opposition will only be powerful when the ANC alliance starts to crack.