An agreement by opposition parties to co- operate against the ANC in the local government elections in November appears to be part of a three-phase process of creating a stronger opposition entity
Howard Barrell
This week’s defection to the Democratic Party of 65 public representatives from other parties suggests a long-awaited and far-reaching realignment of the opposition is imminent.
Politicians in a variety of opposition parties said privately this week they believed the formation of a new opposition entity within the next nine months, based around Tony Leon’s DP, was now becoming a real prospect.
A three-phase process appears to be unfolding: a high number of defections, particularly to the DP, of representatives and organisational structures from other opposition parties, notably Marthinus van Schalkwyk’s New National Party; agreements between opposition parties to co-operate against the ruling African National Congress in the local government elections due in November; culminating in the formation of a new, larger opposition entity, in all probability led by Leon, by about February next year.
One opposition source suggested some parties could move towards unity before the November elections.
DP strategy appears still to be focused primarily on trying to bring most forces opposed to the ANC under one banner – though there is a lot of wariness within the party about doing so over-hastily. Its other focus is a campaign to make inroads into ANC support.
Wednesday’s defectors to the DP comprised 39 public representatives from the NNP, five from the ANC, four from Bantu Holomisa’s United Democratic Movement, one from Constand Viljoen’s Freedom Front and 15 independents.
More defections to the DP are in the pipeline, according to Leon. A national DP source spoke of “whole local government caucuses from other parties who are keen to come over”.
The first moves towards serious co- operation between opposition parties in November’s local government elections have been made, and much now depends on what decisions are taken at this weekend’s meeting of the DP’s federal council in Durban.
The DP leadership is expected to approve formally a plan for co-operation with the NNP in the Western Cape. It could also produce frameworks for a closer relationships between the DP (38 seats in the National Assembly) and the UDM (14) and Louis Luyt’s Federal Alliance (2) in coming months. Several months ago the DP established a basis for co-operation with Lucas Mangope’s United Christian Democratic Party (3).
The proposed co-operation pact in the Western Cape would commit the DP and NNP to “non-aggression” in the province during the election campaign; to jointly deciding which of them should put up a candidate in a ward if a split opposition vote there would mean the ANC winning that seat; and to forming non-ANC local governments in any area in which they might achieve a combined majority.
Opposition party sources said relations between their leaders have improved markedly in recent months. The one exception appears to be the relationship between Leon and Van Schalkwyk, whom Leon displaced as official leader of the opposition in the general election in June last year. Relations between the two have been bitter in recent weeks. Leon has lampooned Van Schalkwyk’s “Vision 2000” alliance, which has put the NNP (28 seats in the National Assembly) in alliance with far right-wing parties such as the Afrikaner Eenheidsbeweging for the local government elections in some provinces.
And Van Schalkwyk was enraged by the defections from his party to the DP this week, alleging it was a case of DP bad faith in the midst of the negotiations over their proposed pact in the Western Cape. The DP, it appears, purposely kept an anti-defection clause out of its agreement with the NNP in the Western Cape.
Van Schalkwyk’s position is becoming an increasingly unenviable one. His party organisation is haemorrhaging badly and faces complete collapse in most areas of the country bar the Western Cape. As far as the party’s position in the National Assembly is concerned, it appears to face a choice between joining up with either the DP or the ANC – or, in the unlikely event that the rest of his party allows him to, leading a group of 28 MPs with very little party organisation or support beyond the confines of Parliament for much of the rest of their five-year term. In that case, the NNP would be a party kept alive almost entirely by those parts of South African electoral law that enable a party leadership to decide who occupies its seats in Parliament and that dictate that any MP who defects to another party loses his or her seat.
“It’s beginning to look as if Marthinus is buggered, or he’s buggered, or he’s buggered – if you get what I mean,” said an opposition MP this week.