The jostling over the spoils of Cabinet posts in the Western Cape and possible representation for the New National Party in the national Cabinet will begin this week.
The federal executive of the NNP attended a meeting on Monday in Johannesburg — which it said was scheduled before the election — at which its national leader, outgoing Western Cape Premier Marthinus van Schalkwyk, was mandated to discuss coalition and cooperation matters with South Africa’s ruling African National Congress.
The party went out of its way to underscore the point that there was no suggestion of any calls for its leader to resign but it would not divulge whether Van Schalkwyk would seek a national Cabinet post — as a reward for his election strategy of working together with the ruling party — or a post in the Western Cape government.
Van Schalkwyk — like his outgoing provincial education minister, Andre Gaum — appears on both the Western Cape legislature and National Assembly candidates lists.
After a poor showing nationally — and after being stripped of representation in seven legislatures and with reduced representation in the Northern Cape and Western Cape — the NNP leadership gave Van Schalkwyk the mandate to “negotiate with the ANC on the cooperative arrangement that the NNP has with the ANC”, said a party statement released on Monday afternoon.
Spokesperson Carol Johnson, who could make it back to Parliament herself as one of the seven MPs in the 400-seat National Assembly, said: “Negotiations will take place over the next couple of days.”
She could not say who would be in the negotiation team apart from Van Schalkwyk. She could also not say who would lead the ANC team.
Chief among the negotiation issues is expected to be the position — and extent of the representation — of the party in the provincial Cabinet in the Western Cape.
Indications from the ANC are at present that Van Schalkwyk’s position of premier will fall away and it is not clear at this stage how many seats the NNP will be provided in the new provincial Cabinet. In the outgoing Cabinet, the NNP had half of the Cabinet. Its representation, however, has fallen to just 11% of the vote (down from 38% in 1999).
Other matters of cooperation — believed to include possible seats in the national Cabinet — are also likely to be discussed with the ANC.
The NNP got less than 2% of the national vote in the election on April 14, the worst showing of the party in its 90-year history.
Johnson said: “The federal executive was unanimous in its decision that the direction that the party has embarked upon is the correct approach in a country as diverse as South Africa. The NNP will continue this approach.”
She said speculative stories about Van Schalkwyk being forced to resign were baseless.
Monday’s meeting was attended by Gauteng leader Johan Kilian, KwaZulu-Natal leader Renier Schoeman, Mpumalanga leader Chris McPherson, Northern Cape leader PW Saaiman, North West leader Amie Venter, Eastern Cape leader Anne Nash, Free State leader Inus Aucamp, secretary general Daryl Swanepoel, youth leader Daniel van Vuuren and women’s leader Joyce Witbooi.
All of those on the federal executive but Van Schalkwyk, Van Vuuren, Witbooi and Saaiman (the latter two are earmarked to go to the Western Cape and Northern Cape legislatures respectively) have lost their seats in Parliament or in the various legislatures. Van Vuuren was not a member of a legislature or Parliament but serves on the National Youth Commission.
Schoeman had been national deputy health minister, McPherson was a member of the Mpumalanga legislature, Venter was a North West legislature member, Kilian was a member of the Gauteng legislature, Nash was in the Eastern Cape legislature and Aucamp was in the Free State legislature. In addition Saaiman was deputy correctional services minister.
In the 1999 election the NNP gained seats in all nine legislatures. Now it has only five seats in the Western Cape, which it won in 1994, and just two in the Northern Cape, a province it only just lost in the 1994 election. — I-Net Bridge