WEDNESDAY, 3.30PM
NATIONAL Party executive director Marthinus van Schalkwyk, 37, has confirmed his candidature for the race to succeed FW de Klerk as party leader, the only confirmation thus far, according to a NP source.
Other contenders, including Western Cape Premier and provincial NP leader Hernus Kriel, 55, have still to officially announce their candidature.
Meanwhile, political eyebrows have been raised by a report that former NP stalwart Pik Botha — long-standing South African Foreign Affairs Minister until 1994 — had been approached by senior NP MPs to make himself available. Botha could not be reached for comment on the report, which appeared in Cape Town Afrikaans daily Die Burger, which has traditionally been close to the NP, and which first broke the news of De Klerk’s resignation. NP sources are sceptical, however.
Other names being mentioned as possible contenders at this stage are Gauteng NP leader Sam de Beer and KwaZulu-Natal NP leader Danie Schutte.
The NP’s electoral college — in essence an extended federal council — is to meet in Cape Town on September 9 to choose the new leader.
WEDNESDAY, 5.30PM
Pik Botha on Wednesday set the preconditions for his making himself avaiable as a candidate in the NP leadership race.
Botha said the NP must be prepared to return to the Government of National Unity and to co-operate fully with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission before he will consider making himself available to replace FW de Klerk as NP leader. The party will also have to undertake to fundamentally change itself, Botha said.
WEDNESDAY, 8.00AM
HERNUS KRIEL, hardline premier of the Western Cape and the man most likely to succeed FW de Klerk, may choose to rejoin the government of national unity and demand the deputy president position he is entitled to, his spokesman was reported saying last night. Kriel is likely to have to rejoin the national leadership of the NP in parliament, thus relinquishing his position as premier of the Western Cape.
De Klerk will receive a monthly pension of R42 500 a month, based on his five years as state president, his 17 years as a cabinet minister, and a career as an MP going back to 1972. He will spend the next few months writing his autobiography.
Meanwhile, the NP has created a new post of honorary president for De Klerk.