Former South African president FW de Klerk’s expected endorsement of the pact between his former apartheid party, the New National Party, and the ruling black majority African National Congress has sparked a volley of arguments between opposition leader Tony Leon and the NNP.
The former president — who himself withdrew his then National Party from the government of national unity with the ANC in 1996 — now supports cooperation between the two parties. He is expected to back NNP leader and Western Cape Premier Marthinus van Schalkwyk’s stance of working with the ANC at a gala function in Stellenbosch on Monday.
The gala marks the 14th anniversary of his February 2 1990 speech when he announced the unbanning of the ANC and other liberation parties. It led to democracy in 1994 after 46 years of one-party white minority rule.
Leon — whose party, the liberal Democratic Alliance, swallowed the New National Party not long after the 1999 national election before the NNP withdrew to cooperate with the ANC in 2001 — said in a statement: ”The last time Mr FW de Klerk chose to come out of retirement and involve himself in party politics, by trying to change the NNP leadership in the Western Cape in September 2001, it all ended in tears.
”In the 1999 election, his endorsement of the NNP did not help that party’s great fall from a previous high of 20% to a dismal 6,8% percent, from official opposition status to being only the fourth-largest party in Parliament.”
”De Klerk’s apparent endorsement of the ANC-NNP cooperation pact will likewise impress few outside the party diehards.
”In fact, Mr De Klerk’s endorsement would be the kiss of death, sinking the Nats even further. It would represent the latest in a long string of betrayals by the New National Party.
”Without interfering with his democratic right to be politically predictable — and wrong — Mr De Klerk’s latest somersault raises a number of questions. Once again, he commits a zig-zag on previous commitments and solemn undertakings.”
In 1996, when then-deputy president De Klerk withdrew the then-National Party from the Government of National Unity (GNU), he said: ”Continued participation [with the ANC] would be equivalent to detention on a kind of political death row.”
Leon said De Klerk added: ”The survival of multiparty democracy, which depends on the existence of a strong and credible opposition, was being threatened by our continued participation in the GNU.
”It was on that basis that 1,1-million voters supported the NNP in the 1999 elections. But Mr Marthinus van Schalkwyk sold out the voters. He left the opposition to climb into bed with the ANC,” Leon asserted.
”Now it appears that Mr De Klerk may be about to do the same — to go back on his word, to sell out the voters yet again and to undermine multiparty democracy.
”Being double-crossed by the National Party leadership — new or old — is nothing new. Voters who are interested in strong opposition and effective government are lining up behind the DA and our positive vision for the Western Cape and South Africa.
”The voters will not be fooled by the NNP ever again. Even Mr De Klerk’s endorsement reinforces what the voters already know: a vote for the Nats is a vote for the ANC,” Leon added.
Western Cape NNP provincial education minister Andre Gaum said in response: ”Tony Leon’s hysterical and vindictive attack on former president FW de Klerk shows all the signs of a party in a state of panic and is destined to backfire with devastating effect.
”Leon has launched a direct attack on an icon of the Afrikaans-speaking community. In South African politics there are certain heavyweight politicians who have shaped the history and the future of this country forever.”
Gaum, a confidante of Van Schalkwyk, said: ”Like former president Mandela, Mr De Klerk will always, regardless of what Leon has to say, be reflected in the history books as a political heavyweight — something Leon is not. If Leon wants to ditch politics for a boxing career, he should stick to the lightweight division.”
Van Schalkwyk said at the weekend that endorsement by De Klerk would benefit his party. — I-Net Bridge