The future of the New National Party (NNP) lies in strengthening its ties with the African National Congress (ANC), the party announced following a federal council meeting in Centurion on Saturday.
The NNP and ANC have agreed to ”strengthen and deepen the relationship of cooperation between the two parties”, NNP leader Marthinus van Schalkwyk told reporters.
”The South Africa of 2004 is not the South Africa of 1990 or 1994. You can either close your eyes to that or accept the reality… the political space between the ANC and other political parties has simply got less and less.”
He said ”the kind of policies the ANC expouses and executes… are the kind of policies we support,” for this reason, he said ”our future lies together and with the ANC”.
The decision was agreed to by 56 out of 60 members at the party’s federal council.
The dissenting Free State branch of the NNP had proposed to disband the party, following the party’s poor performance in April’s national and provincial election.
Van Schalkwyk said the details of how the party would work together had to still be finalised.
”The NNP as an entity will continue … exactly how we structure it will depend on talks with the ANC”, he said, referring to the decision as the ”next logical and necessary step”.
He said they would adopt a ”common approach from which the parties will develop future policies and plan for the development of South Africa”.
Van Schalkwyk would not be drawn on what exactly a ”common approach” would mean. At the Centurion meeting, the two parties issued a joint statement agreeing to the new relationship.
”The Freedom Charter, as adopted by the Congress of the People on June 26, 1955 and the Constitution of the republic of South Africa, which embodies the principles of the charter, should form the common departure point from which the two parties will develop future policies and plan for the development of South Africa,” the statement said.
He said the two parties would also develop an approach to the 2005/6 local government elections.
The ANC would ratify the agreement at its national executive council meeting on July 5, Van Schalkwyk said. The NNP obtained seven out of a total of 400 seats in the
Natioanal Assembly after the April poll. It has five MPLs in the Western Cape and two in the Northern Cape. – Sapa