For the Democratic Party, the formation of the Democratic Alliance was motivated by a desire to build in South Africa a principled opposition party that could win enough support to bring the African National Congress below the 50% mark at the polls.
Together with others inside the party, I had come to the conclusion that unless the opposition managed to do this within the foreseeable future, the success of our democracy would be seriously imperilled. Since then-president Nelson Mandela’s fateful speech to the ANC in December 1997 in Mafikeng, it had become clear that the ANC had changed — fundamentally and for the worse.
First the space for dissent inside the ANC was narrowed and, where possible, closed down. Then, after the 1999 election, President Thabo Mbeki assumed a monarchical detachment from Parliament, the opposition was demonised and key institutions of parliamentary accountability — from question time to the parliamentary standing committee on public accounts — were vandalised. Above all, the ANC was accelerating its ”transformation agenda”, the purpose of which is not to extend opportunity to the disadvantaged, as it should be, but to extend ANC ”hegemony” over all the ”levers of power” in our society. This includes the machinery of state, the judiciary and the media.
Under these circumstances, a refusal to countenance the idea of a consolidated opposition would have amounted to an abrogation of our duty to the people we served and the country we loved. I was determined that we should seriously explore the possibility of consolidated opposition.
On that basis we penned an offer to the New National Party (and the United Democractic Movement) and suggested that they contest the election under the banner of the DP. Bantu Holomisa dismissed the suggestion, but not so Marthinus van Schalkwyk. The man I met for breakfast the next day was a much-reduced figure. He immediately offered up both his own leadership and his party’s name and identity in furtherance of the creation of the still-to-be-named DA.
Van Schalkwyk assured me that he shared our commitment to building a non-racial, principled alternative to the ANC, but went on to say that he required some accommodation, ”with dignity”, to massage the merger past the hard men holding out in his own party.
After a series of further meetings with Van Schalkwyk, the parties set up two negotiating teams. I expected the greatest sticking point to be over principles and policies, but it was not so: the Nats sent in a party bureaucrat who quickly agreed to the proposals put forward by DP rising star and committed liberal Helen Zille.
Our conclusion was that the Nats would accept the DP’s essentially liberal democratic approach and strategic leadership, provided its leadership got the dignity they so desperately craved.
But looking back, I must confess to having been mistaken, for it was not just dignity that Van Schalkwyk and his inner circle were after, but position and power, and a new vehicle to replace the clapped-out one they had just driven into the ground. I am not saying that the leader of the opposition is a boy scout, but the truth is that I was wrong to take the NNP leadership at its word.
The bitter recriminations, which the country has recently witnessed between us, might have been avoided had the DP component pushed a harder bargain, or had some of us not mistaken the objective weakness of the NNP as a sign of benignity. Robert Conquest’s description of the Soviet Union in the late 1980s should have been a warning: ”To think that a weak opponent is not dangerous misses the point that a dog with rabies is in poor health, but it would be a mistake to pat him.”
The final deal reflected the very first conversation I had had with Van Schalkwyk: the DP had not compromised its principles and would retain organisational and strategic leadership; in return, the NNP leadership were given the positions they required.
But even before the local government elections in December 2000, the NNP leadership began to undermine the agreement. This manifested itself in a number of ways:
- Through concerted attempts to promote Van Schalkwyk as a co-equal leader;
- By refusing to close down NNP structures (as the DP closed its own, and as agreed), with a view to retaining a separate organisational base inside the party with which to promote Van Schalkwyk;
- By engaging in the fraudulent recruitment of members coupled with an insistence that membership would be the basis for election to decision-making bodies in the party, rather than the more rational votes-based approach;
- By refusing to disclose the identity of donors and concealing the fact of a R5-million bad debt at Absa bank; and
- By refusing to check the unprincipled and unaccountable behaviour of Peter Marais in his capacity as mayor of Cape Town.
From the public’s point of view the NNP’s withdrawal from the DA might seem to have come about through our decision to ask for Peter Marais’ resignation as mayor of Cape Town because he was damaging the party’s cause throughout the country. But in reality that was only the visible tip of the iceberg. The real battle over control of the organisation and its future direction had been going on for most of the year below the surface. The rest is history: when it became clear to Van Schalkwyk that the DA was not his for the taking, he turned to the ANC in another attempt to secure himself a position consistent with the requirements of his ”dignity”.
Inevitably in these matters, much of what happened has been distorted and misrepresented. But what pains me most is the disappointment felt by many of our supporters — people who had hoped that the opposition could transcend its historical differences in pursuit of a greater good.
Still, I take solace in knowing that the DA, without the disruptive presence of the NNP’s national leadership, is now in a position to refocus its attention on articulating a vision for the future that is attractive to opposition voters and to those who are tired of the ANC’s failure to deliver the better life it promised. Opinion polls, more than 15 recent by-election results, and our experience on the ground all point to the fact that at the next election the DA will retain the support of the overwhelming majority of minority voters, and will make significant gains among former ANC voters.
It is no easy task to build an alternative in South Africa. It requires a stubborn kind of determination and buckets of self-belief. And it cannot be done without risk. Indeed everything has not gone as planned since the formation of the DA in June 2000, and we have suffered some setbacks. But if we have taken a few steps backwards along the way, we have made even greater strides forward, because, despite what a few know-it-all armchair experts might say, the DA is now in a position from which it can grow at the ANC’s expense. And if we do that, and remain true to our core values along the way, then South Africa and all her people will be the winners.
Tony Leon MP is leader of the Democratic Alliance