The New Movement Process is launching this weekend, but little can shake the ANCs dominance, writes Marion Edmunds
As Roelf Meyer and Bantu Holomisa prepare to launch their extra-parliamentary movement at Kempton Park this weekend, opposition parties in Parliament are involved in delicate negotiations for future co-operation.
Meyer and Holomisa are seen as the catalyst for such talks, but opposition sources say it is unlikely the New Movement Process (NMP) will ultimately take the lead; at best, it will only form part of a new opposition movement.
The movements two leaders committed themselves to founding a non-racial opposition which reflects the new South Africa in its most positive, and vote- catching, sense.
They hope this formation will jolt both the black and white non-African National Congress supporting electorate into a different mind-set, and break the inherited racial and ethnic patterns underpinning opposition parties and the ANC.
We found that there was a call from the people for a fundamental renewal. The new party embraces with passion the role of rebuilding a divided society, NMP representative Annelise van Wyk told a recent conference on the future of political parties.
Abstract ideologies are out, sensible pragmatic options are in. We aim to be a critical partner with common universal values reflecting what is right and good for our nation.
Holomisa and Meyer are expected to draw support away from the ANC and the National Party respectively, in their former constituencies, the Eastern Cape and yuppie Afrikaner Gauteng. However, support beyond their own ethnic groups is not proven and opinion polls reflected them as a two to three percent initiative in their first month.
They have not been able to secure commitment from other strategic political players, aside from Sifiso Nkabinde and former Bophuthatswana leader Lucas Mangope associations which have backfired.
Established political parties are reserving judgment, waiting to see what sort of crowd Holomisa and Meyer draw at Kempton Park, and the substance of their policies.
Before you opt for another opposition party, you must first analyse what is wrong with the current opposition parties, said Pan Africanist Congress veteran Patricia de Lille. Holomisa and Meyer identified that what people wanted was a strong multi- racial opposition, but I am not sure that by simply bringing black and white people together, they will make a stronger opposition than already exists. Holomisa, who draws a lot of support in the Eastern Cape, would have a better chance on his own.
PAC leader Stanley Mogoba has visited opposition party leaders for discussions, but has yet to make a date with the Holomeyer movement.
Meantime, Holomisa and Meyer are working hard to sustain the Democratic Partys interest in their outfit. A DP representative this week placed their association at the level of warm continuing talks.
But the new movements leaders are competing for DP leader Tony Leons attention as Meyers arch-enemy, new NP leader Marthinus van Schalkwyk, muscles in on the realignment talks.
And while he is flirting with Van Schalkwyk over lunch, Leon is also thumping the NP leader soundly at the polls. Last week the DP triumphed in a municipal by-election in KwaZulu-Natals Margate.
This is the third time this year that Leon has snatched traditional NP seats, and if he continues to trounce them, there may be no point in any alliance apart from an association with Hernus Kriel, who presides with increasing imperiousness over the NP coloured stronghold of the Western Cape.
Market research done for the DP shows that it has increased its support among wealthy urban whites, coloureds and Indians from 15,7% in 1994, to 24% today. The NP has slid in that period among those groupings from 41,8% to 30,9%. Polls, however, continue to put the DP, for all its bluster, at 2% nationally, and the NP at approximately 14%.
Opinion is divided on whether Van Schalkwyk will be able to regain lost ground to push party support back to 20%, as it was in the 1994 elections. He intends consolidating his position in coloured, Indian and white areas, and experimenting with alliances with conservative black groupings.
Even together, the DP and the NP will not make the ANC tremble in 1999. The players know that realignment, without a change of stance and attitude, will not automatically draw votes away from the ANC, or animate their traditional voters, who are sliding into apathy.
Voters in South Africa would be excited by a fundamental reshift of opposition forces to replace the current rather stale divides between parties inherited from the past. This is not so much because of ideological reasons but because people in South Africa believe you need power in order to change things. We have to look more powerful to become more powerful, said DP MP James Selfe, Leons parliamentary adviser.