Democratic Alliance leader Tony Leon came out swinging last night, saying the New National Party was on ”its way to oblivion in the one province it used to dominate”.
In an apparent move to deflect attention from startling allegations that the party accepted cash from German tax fugitive Jurgen Harksen, Leon said the DA had commissioned a survey that showed the New National Party’s support had collapsed in the Western Cape.
Speaking at a rally in Athlone, he said it had been conducted by a leading independent research company and the full findings would be made public later this week.
Leon again said the ANC wished to control every province, city and town in the country, and that it would do whatever it took to achieve this.
The ANC, including President Thabo Mbeki, could not stand the fact that the party had been kept out of power in the Western Cape in every election since 1994.
That is why it enticed ”one of the most inadequate, principle-averse and self-serving politicians in South African politics to betray the people of the Western Cape”.
”I am talking, of course, about (NNP leader) Marthinus van Schalkwyk, the ultimate joiner,” Leon said, about his former ally and the man who will be installed next week as Western Cape premier.
On the adoption of four bills in the National Assembly earlier on Tuesday allowing MPs, MPLs and municipal councillors to defect without losing their seats, he said it was the ”ultimate tribute” to the DA.
The bills had been rushed through ”not for some majestic principle, not to improve the stalled delivery of the state, not to advance the much spoken of, seldom sighted, better life”, but because it was an attempt to destroy the opposition, he said.
It was aimed at replacing the people’s chosen opposition with one handpicked by the government.
Referring to the premier’s official Cape Town residence, Leeuwenhof, he said Van Schalkwyk should rename it ”Poodle Palace”.
”Because that is what he has done to the great and independent Cape tradition – replaced the lion’s roar with the yap of a lapdog.”
Leon said his party had supported the defection legislation because however grubby their origin, the DA had nothing to fear from their enactment.
Leon said Van Schalkwyk had cut himself from his former support base and had no leverage with the ANC.
”He might be the premier now, but after the 2004 election he will be the leader of only the third biggest party in the Western Cape. He will also be leader of a party that does not exist anywhere else in South Africa. He will, in other words, be the leader of next to nothing.”
Van Schalkwyk was asking former NNP councillors to leave the DA and to join him in his co-operation pact with the ANC, Leon said.
”Perhaps he thinks that DA councillors are stupid. But they are not.
”And what happens in the 2005 municipal elections? Simple: the NNP will not win a single ward outright in Cape Town.”
Leon also accused Van Schalkwyk and the NNP of making all kinds of offers and promises to woo the DA’s elected representatives.
”We hear all kinds of stories about how DA people are being offered positions and jobs and personal support.
People at the end of the day had to do what their consciences told them to do, Leon said. – Sapa