Is the Freedom Front a party for all Afrikaans-speakers, or is it just for white Afrikaners?
We exclude no one on racial or other grounds. But we decided, after studying proportional representation in Europe, to go for specific interests rather than numbers. This makes marketing and political sense — the risk with the Democratic Alliance’s attempt to be everything to everyone is that it becomes nothing. Our niche is Afrikaners, and the reality is that most are white.
If every white Afrikaner voted for you, you’d get 6% of the parliamentary seats. How can you hope to have political influence?
You’re thinking of the Westminster system; you don’t understand proportionality. The German Greens are a niche party with 7% of the vote, but in the second phase of proportionality — forming alliances — they’ve joined up with the SDP and they’ve got power. They’re shutting down nuclear power stations.
Because of the liberation struggle we have abnormal politics in South Africa — the African National Congress has 70% support and the biggest opposition party 12%. In future, as the struggle fades, no party is going to be able to rule on its own. Alliance politics will rule the roost.
You hardly mention a volkstaat in your election literature. Is that because most Afrikaners reject your proposed homeland in the wilderness of the Northern Cape?
Before 1994 the volkstaat concept was emotionally laden because of people like Eugene Terre’Blanche and Robert van Tonder. It’s a much more complicated issue. We prefer the international language of minority rights and self-determination, and we recognise these are a process, not something that falls from heaven. We’re still very far from a volkstaat in South Africa.
How do you address the problem of diversity? I use the analogy of a ladder, with different levels of minority rights. Estonia has a cultural council that rules language rights and mother tongue education. Spain has language regions. In South Africa, Afrikaners are moving from Lim-popo and concentrating in the Western and Northern Cape; in future we might have to respond by decentralising power.
It requires political commitment to go this route. Our contribution is in moving South Africa away from slogan politics towards the international approach.
What sign is there that the ANC is prepared to recognise the rights of ethnic minorities?
These things can only be delayed, not stopped. If you address them early enough, you may not have to go to the top of the ladder; if you suppress them, as in Yugoslavia, you get an explosion.
Our president is wise enough not to follow Zimbabwe, but what about 50 years’ time? We studied failed settlements in places like Cyprus and Lebanon. Normally there’s no problem with the first generation of leaders, like [Nelson] Mandela, who make the settlement. The second generation, like Thabo Mbeki, may not pursue settlement so strongly, but still feel bound. The problem arises with third- and fourth-generation leaders, who play to their own audience.
Your election posters call on voters to ”say no to the ANC”. But your strategy is to beg for concessions from the ruling party …
It’s the DA posters, which say it’s time for change, that mislead and cause disillusionment. With 12% of the vote, change is not possible. We say use your vote to send a message to government — that you’re not satisfied with 60 murders a day, or the R10-million sent to Haiti when South Africans are starving.
The mistake the DA makes is having no contact with the government. On the other side, the New National Party is so close to the ANC that it’s going to lose many votes in the election, so there’ll be no point in dealing with it. The NNP is about personal positions; the focus of its campaign is ”Vote for me [Marthinus van Schalkwyk] as Western Cape premier”.
Our approach is to be a credible party with enough voters that people must take notice of us, and to keep channels with government open so we can negotiate for our supporters.
Won’t your access to government, and image as the rational party of the right, be damaged by your marriage with the racial diehards of the Conservative Party?
That’s the risk I took — now I must prove the predictions wrong. The CP has changed since 1994; most former leaders have gone and it understands the new realities. At its peak, it had 800 000 supporters. It’s better for them to be back in the system and exercising their vote. And they’ll be voting for the FF, its policies and its leaders — we haven’t changed.
South Africa has a totally new political world with new rules. Even the terms ”left” and ”right” don’t mean the same. Marietta Marx from the left of the NNP has joined us; there’s not much difference between my position on universities and Breyten Breytenbach’s. On economic issues, the DA is definitely to our right.
You’ve called for a plebiscite on the death penalty. Would you accept a plebiscite on property rights?
That’s a correct criticism — in a constitutional state there are dangers with plebiscites, particularly for minority rights. But we were trying to give the ANC a way out. The death penalty was an emotional issue for ANC leaders before 1994 because it was used politically; Mandela and Mbeki’s father both faced it. But that was 10 years ago, and studies show up to 80% of ANC supporters want it.
It’s a very serious punishment, but one must think of that hijacking where a baby was shot dead. Some US states abolished the death penalty only to bring it back after a few years.
You oppose affirmative action, but say you also fear racial conflict. How does one avoid conflict without redistributing income and job opportunities?
We understand why it’s being done, but affirmative action is creating a new discrimination, an angry new generation of young whites. Research indicates that if the employment equity quotas were enforced with 1,9% economic growth, 600 000 whites would have to be fired.
We argued for a cut-off date at the outset — once you’d got the policy, government would find it impossible to withdraw it. Now we say: cut it off with 1992 school entrants. We accept 10 years of affirmative action, but we seriously want some indication of when it’s going to stop.
The government allocates disproportionate resources to tackling farm murders, and the police have a high farm murder conviction rate. What more do you want?
Of course farmers are soft targets; of course it’s crime. But 278 farmers are murdered per 100 000 people compared to 48 overall. Farmers believe there’s a political agenda to force them off the land, and that government is unwilling to act.
It’s about symbolism and per- ceptions. Government took away the commando system without putting anything in its place. They also rejected our proposal of tax exemptions for farmers who protect themselves.
Your voter support fell from about 450 000 in 1994 to 135 000 in 1999. Aren’t race and ethnic identity declining electoral factors in South Africa, implying that the FF is doomed to extinction?
This election will prove you wrong. In 1999 voters told us General Constand Viljoen had got too close to the ANC; this time the NNP will pay the price.
In theory people vote on policy. In practice ethnicity continues to play a very important role.