Cape Town | Wednesday
THE bitter power struggle in the Democratic Alliance has led to accusations by the Democratic Party that its alliance partner the New National Party is fraudulently padding membership in the Western Cape and Northern Cape.
A DA source told Sapa on Wednesday that trust between the two parties had reached an all-time low.
This follows the publication of a Financial Mail article quoting a senior DP source as saying that an internal audit of the DA’s membership drive had suggested that up to 20% of the lists were tainted in various ways and could not be accepted.
The DA has apparently signed up 55 000 members countrywide, which is now the subject of a stringent audit.
Most of the discrepancies — perhaps as high as 80% — were put in by NNP members in the party stronghold of the Western Cape and the Northern Cape, the Financial Mail reported.
There were also some discrepancies in the DP-dominated Gauteng.
The NNP recruiters had engaged in such practices as ‘sponsored membership’, where for example, residents of an old age home admitted to the auditors that their party fees had been paid for them by NNP officials, according to the Financial Mail.
Another apparent membership scam was the signing up of non-existent or dead people.
The NNP’s popularity had plunged from 20% in 1994 to just under seven percent in the 1999 elections.
Since the DA was established in June last year, ”the NNP has sought be stealth to take increasing control of the alliance by singing up thousands of members to back up its demands in party constitutional negotiations which continues”, the Financial Mail said.
A NNP source speaking on condition of anonymity said on Wednesday the latest allegations were purely ”DP mischief”.
The membership audit is headed by the DP’s NCOP delegate Greg Krumbock who is also the DA’s executive director.
”The leaking of these untested findings of the audit happens to come at a time when it favours the DP’s stand in constitutional negotiations between the two parties which are coming to a head,” the NNP source said.
An official DA statement is to be issued by the DP’s James Selfe, in his capacity as the DA’s national management committee Chair.
Speaking on SAFM on Wednesday morning, the DA’s Renier Schoeman — who is an NNP MP — said the internal audit was still progressing. He did not know when it would be completed.
”There is no way on earth that anybody can make any allegation or statement of any fraud, especially, or anything being dealt with inappropriately at this time. We deny outright what is being suggested.”
Schoeman said the response to the membership drive was very good.
The NNP and DP have different views on how representation will be secured or awarded within the alliance before and after the 2004 national and provincial elections.
The DP believes that power should depend on votes cast in the last election, where it became the Official Opposition.
The NNP on the other hand believes that membership — inevitably lower than the number of votes cast for a party — is the yardstick.
The Financial Mail reported the DA’s national management committee was to meet this week to seek a way out of the morass.
It said a decision had been taken to track down and prosecute everyone who has been involved in the membership lists scam.
The latest row, follows bitter in-fighting at local level between DA and NNP councillors, with unicity mayor Peter Marais a central figure in the hostilities. – Sapa