The ANC seems to be wooing the opposition in preparation for local government elections
Peter Dickson and Jaspreet Kindra
The African National Congress this week stepped up efforts to neutralise the fragile opposition in the country in preparation for the November local government elections.
In the Eastern Cape, ANC Premier Makhenkesi Stofile told the New National Party at its provincial congress that “the hearts of the people are asking for this unity in purpose and action” after suggesting the parties co-operate for the municipal elections.
In KwaZulu-Natal, the ANC’s national secretary general, Kgalema Motlanthe, apologised to Inkatha Freedom Party leader Mangosuthu Buthelezi for any slights inflicted upon him by the ANC in the apartheid era – amid widespread talk in the province that the IFP plans to deliberately soft-peddle the election so as not to upset the balance of power with the ANC.
Apart from the Eastern Cape, KwaZulu- Natal and the Western Cape, the ANC is set for a landslide victory in the November poll.
Stofile’s extraordinary overture to the NNP followed the release of a Human Sciences Research Council survey carried out last November that showed declining ANC support in the Eastern Cape.
The Eastern Cape NNP was quick to deny any deal with the ANC, fearing a flood of defections to the Democratic Party – especially in its Western Cape stronghold.
Stofile, who received a standing ovation after his speech, told NNP delegates, including party leader Marthinus van Schalkwyk, that his invitation had been sanctioned by President Thabo Mbeki and Deputy President Jacob Zuma. The premier told delegates he was not asking for the merging of the two parties, but that mutual co-operation had to be found.
NNP Eastern Cape leader Manie Schoeman told delegates on Monday that the party was ideologically closer to ANC nationalism than it was to the DP. He added that the Afrikaner constituency role largely coincided with the ANC’s black constituency role.
The Afrikaans press was abuzz with speculation that the ANC and the NNP were set on a new era of co-operation ahead of the November elections.
But Schoeman, stressing the ANC was still his party’s chief opponent, denied on Monday that he had said the two parties differed little ideologically.
Alliance talks with the DP had not been scotched, Schoeman said, although the DP, United Democratic Movement and the Pan Africanist Congress had not responded to invitations to attend the Port Elizabeth congress.
NNP sources say Schoeman’s apparent backtrack followed pressure from the party in the Western Cape, where it rules in a coalition with the DP, amid fears of another mass walkover to the DP.
In KwaZulu-Natal, the ANC is holding no cards back to woo the increasingly pliant IFP. Motlanthe, in the presence of Zuma, this weekend apologised on behalf of the party for its silence when Buthelezi, as head of the erstwhile KwaZulu homeland government, was accused of being a sell- out. The apology – the latest political offering from the ANC to the IFP – is seen by commentators not only as an attempt to maintain the peace in the province but also to absorb the IFP into its fold. Political scientist Dr Laurence Piper of the University of Natal said it was just a matter of time before the IFP is absorbed into the party.
Sources said the apology, tendered at a reconciliation workshop in Durban, arose out of a document prepared by the IFP-ANC three- a-side committee – established in December 1998 to promote peace in the province following the sporadic incidents of violence between the two parties.
The IFP and the ANC, backed by the Minority Front, occupy 34 seats each in the KwaZulu-Natal legislature, which is run by a coalition government. Sources within the IFP claim the party is likely to soft- peddle the local government elections as it does not want to upset the balance of power in the province.
This was disputed by party representative Musa Zondi, however, who said they were going to go all out to consolidate and extend their base.
He said while they haven’t chalked out a strategy yet vis–vis their relationship with the ANC, he presumed that co-operation between the two parties as was evidenced during the last election is likely to continue.
“The important issue,” Piper says, “is not so much the effectiveness of opposition politics, but rather the growing centralisation in the ANC and government which has seen the president’s office all but replace the Cabinet as the executive.”