intact and subdued
Howard Barrell
On his desk, atop a clutter of scattered papers, lay a copy of Sun Tzu’s The Art of War, the ancient Chinese text on how to have your cake and eat it on the battlefield. Behind his desk, the senior Democratic Party official was up and down in his chair as he recounted the events of two remarkable weeks in South African opposition politics. He could, it seemed, still barely believe the scale of the coup his party had pulled off.
I was reminded of a section of Sun Tzu’s text which reads: “To capture the enemy’s army is better than to destroy it … To subdue the enemy without fighting is the acme of skill.”
The New National Party, if enemy it was, is captured intact and subdued.
It took, really, only two weeks for the DP and NNP to accommodate each other, with (if the truth be told) the DP now holding the title deeds on the new structure that goes by the name Democratic Alliance.
Although the idea of some form of unity had been discussed in both parties for several years, it took the forthcoming local government elections, particularly the challenge they will pose to smaller parties, to focus the two party leaderships’ minds.
For the DP, the idea of making a deal with the Nats first really took root at a meeting of a small group of DP insiders around Tony Leon at Lourensford, a secluded farming estate near Somerset West outside Cape Town, on June 1. They decided in principle to consider forming something new with the NNP provided it involved DP leadership and accorded with DP values, principles and strategic requirements.
“But we thought nothing could be done before the local government elections,” says one of those present.
The DP decided, however, to test opposition waters. On June 7 it announced 39 defections to it from the NNP, including councillors and other notables.
Behind a brave public face, the NNP was devastated.
“Things looked very bad for us – people were talking about our time being up,” says a senior NNP MP.
“We had good intelligence on what was going on in their ranks,” says a senior DP member. His party recognised that a new situation had developed, containing new possibilities.
Two days later, Ryan Coetzee, the student of Sun Tzu who also heads DP strategy, came up with the idea that the party suggest to the NNP that it fight under the DP banner in the local government elections.
The DP’s federal council, which happened to be meeting the next day, Saturday, in Durban, unanimously approved the offer to the NNP.
The offer, when it came, threw the NNP into some disarray.
NNP leader Marthinus van Schalkwyk and key aides felt they could not possibly accept such an offer, particularly in view of the pressure the defections had put them under. They rejected it as arrogant.
But, on Monday morning, Leon and Van Schalkwyk had breakfast together at Cape Town’s Bay hotel. DP sources suggest their leader came away with the impression that Van Schalkwyk was far less hostile to some form of unity than NNP statements indicated.
Later that day the NNP countered with their trump card: they threatened to reduce the DP’s four seats on the NNP- dominated Western Cape coalition Cabinet. The DP publicly called the NNP’s bluff: tear up the Western Cape coalition agreement if you dare, and explain yourselves to the voters.
In private, the DP message to the NNP was: let’s talk about the substantive issue of some form of alliance and, in that way, you can put your threat aside without seeming to climb down.
On Monday, at a ceremony to name the DP’s parliamentary caucus room after her, veteran liberal MP Helen Suzman seemed to give her blessing to attempts to expand the party.
On Tuesday the DP ratcheted up the pressure on the NNP. Louis Luyt announced his Federal Alliance would fight under the DP banner.
The next day the DP took the pressure up another notch: Hernus Kriel, former Nat leader in the Western Cape and provincial premier, joined the DP and appealed to other NNP members to do the same.
On Wednesday night a private message from the NNP offered agreement on an alliance in which both parties kept their separate identities, followed by talks.
The DP replied it was willing to enter talks on what form unity might take.
The two parties then announced they would be entering talks and two teams of 11 each were drawn up. They met for dinner first at the Cullinan hotel on the Cape Town waterfront that Sunday night.
The DP’s opening position was: the NNP must fight under the DP banner and accept DP principles. The NNP’s was: an alliance of two separate parties.
On Monday morning, at the next meeting in the 11-on-11 talks, the DP shifted the debate. It offered talks on forming an altogether new party – under predominant DP leadership, principles and organisational thrust.
The NNP responded that it needed a mandate from its federale raad to enter such talks.
On Tuesday it returned with a mandate demanding, among other things, that the name of any new party must include the word “national”. The meeting to-ed and fro-ed. Negotiations were going nowhere.
On Wednesday evening a group of DP tacticians – including deputy leader Douglas Gibson, MP James Selfe, Western Cape leader Hennie Bester and Coetzee – visited Leon at his Cape Town flat. Their message was: 11-on-11 is not working. With Leon, they decided: Leon and Van Schalkwyk must meet again to break the logjam; much smaller groups must be involved in the negotiation. They got in touch with Van Schalkwyk.
Thursday morning: breakfast again at the Bay hotel. Leon and Van Schalkwyk met alone between 7am and 8am. They were joined by what becomes known as “the breakfast group”. On the DP side that’s Gibson, Bester and MP Ken Andrew; on the NNP side Renier Schoeman, chair of the Federal Council; and Gerald Morkel, Premier of the Western Cape. There was progress: they would form a single party; the name would be the Democratic Alliance. Van Schalkwyk would be deputy leader under Leon, with DP MP Joe Seremane as chair.
After breakfast, Leon and Van Schalkwyk headed for their weekly caucus meetings to brief their MPs and, later, others involved in the now suspended 11-on-11 talks.
A DP document outlining a basis for unity was presented to the NNP breakfast group late on Thursday. They were upset by it.
On Friday morning (June 23) the breakfast group met again. Later that evening another group met to reconcile the two documents. It culminated in Bester typing up a penultimate version at 2am on Saturday morning. There were six outstanding points of disagreement.
Elsewhere on Friday morning, discussions opened on a statement of common values for the new party. They continued later that evening between Coetzee and Western Cape MEC Helen Zille for the DP and, for the NNP, Van Schalkwyk’s aides Daryl Swanepoel and Shaun Vorster. They reached agreement remarkably easily.
The six points of disagreement now threatened the entire project. The federal councils of both the DP and NNP were due to meet in a few hours. Once more Leon and Van Schalkwyk must break the logjam.
Later on Saturday morning: again, breakfast. Leon, Van Schalkwyk and their closest advisers met. It was make or break. Van Schalkwyk decided, in the interests of opposition unity, to concede on one or two points.
Bester literally ran off to type up the final agreement, gave the NNP a copy, and rushed his copy over to the Arthur’s Seat hotel in Sea Point where the DP federal council was already under way in an atmosphere of high emotion. People who have fought “the Nats” for decades were confronted with the prospect of having to embrace them.
Leon was strongly in favour. Bester delivered another of the speeches that moved the DP’s council. But the humdinger was delivered by the party’s elder statesman, Colin Eglin. “The Egg”, as he is known, said: Yes, he has his doubts about the agreement; yes, there are risks; but, yes, the risks are worth taking in the interests of opposition strength and democracy – provided the new party reaches out to black voters.
About five out of 71 of the DP council dissented.
At the NNP council, Van Schalkwyk, in an atmosphere of equal emotion, declared the end of his party after about 80 years, most of it at the unhappy centre of South African politics. He achieved unanimity.
Robust criticism is good for us, PAGE 33