The jury is out on whether the New National Party will be around in any significant form to celebrate its centenary in 2014.
Next month the party will trek to Stellenbosch to kick off its election campaign. The 2004 poll will decide whether the NNP’s politics of consensus finds favour with voters.
From its founding 90 years ago to protect Afrikaner interests, to its current incarnation as junior partner in an alliance with the African National Congress, the NNP has seen its fortunes rise and fall spectacularly.
The death of the party has often been predicted since 1994, yet it has clung on, some would say, by hook or by crook.
The NNP’s claim to fame now is that it is South Africa’s most rainbow-like political party with 42% coloured support, 30% white, 17% Indian and a good sprinkling of African support, according to last November’s Human Sciences Research Council survey.
”It [the NNP] is adjusting to the need to survive. So far it has succeeded. But now it has to show results,” says Professor Lawrence Schlemmer, director of the Helen Suzman Foundation.
And this means that the NNP must prove it can extract concessions from the ANC government on behalf of minorities.
The party’s longevity depends on its track record in getting votes. And the NNP faces the difficulty of convincing voters who do not like the ANC that a vote for it is not one for the ruling party.
The NNP’s well-being may rest not in its Western Cape stronghold, but in KwaZulu-Natal, says Professor Willie Breytenbach of the University of Stellenbosch.
If poll predictions of hung legislatures in KwaZulu-Natal and Western Cape are realised, ”then the NNP may have another breather”, he says. ”If the unexpected, but not impossible happens, then they [the NNP] have to bail out the ANC.”
The Markinor poll last week showed the ANC obtaining 50% of the KwaZulu -Natal vote. With its predicted 2% voting support, the NNP would hold the balance of power.
In the Western Cape, the cooperation pact looks set to continue as the poll shows neither the ANC nor the NNP, nor the Democratic Alliance, would win outright.
And even the ANC-NNP pact may have to find another partner to secure a 50-plus-one majority, according to Markinor.
What may change is the composition of the provincial administration, depending on poll performance.
The premiership, currently held by NNP leader Marthinus van Schalkwyk, will be discussed at national level — but only after the election.
Since scoring more than 20% of the vote in 1994, the NNP saw its vote decimated to 6,87% in 1999. And it has struggled to catch up ever since.
With politics coalescing around issues like unemployment, poverty, crime and HIV/Aids, the NNP is offering a different approach, which may appeal to voters.
And with the ANC hedging its bets, the NNP may have to begin plotting an independent path.
The two parties share no electoral pact and both are vying for the largest voting block in the Cape — the coloured communities.
Elements of the 2001 agreement, such as NNP representation in the executives of provinces where it has representation, have not materialised. With new provincial legislatures and cabinets, some of these points of agreement could take hold.