Ironically, the New National Party may have thrown in the towel too soon. Some officials in the African National Congress argue that the NNP should have waited until after next year’s local government elections before joining the ANC, in the hope that they would be able to bring some supporters with them.
However, NNP officials, panicked about the way the party is haemorrhaging support, moved now for fear that they would have no support to show — and nothing to negotiate with — after one more election. Operation Nat Attack was a lengthy process:
In January 1998, the ANC walks out of the provincial government and ends up on the opposition benches in the Western Cape. The ANC leader in the province, Ebrahim Rasool, and others, conceive ‘Operation Nat Attack†— a plan to break NNP support among coloureds in the Western Cape. The ANC tries to win over the coloured leadership of the NNP by claiming it is being asked to deliver the working class vote to a predominantly conservative Afrikaner NNP leadership — a new form of ‘baaskapâ€.
Then NNP leader Patrick Mkenzie, among others, defects to the ANC shortly before the 1999 general election. The defections demoralise the NNP’s grassroots, and although it does not switch its support to the ANC during the poll, the party is seriously weakened.
After the June 1999 election, the NNP starts talking to both the Democratic Party and the ANC about a possible alliance. This is a reflection of the deep divisions in the party. However, the NNP decides to form the Democratic Alliance with the then-DP. Operation Nat Attack suffers a setback.
The Nationalists in the DA soon begin to feel sidelined in the alliance by what they perceive as the arrogance of party leader Tony Leon and his lieutenants. This finds expression in a series of vicious public fights between the NNP and the DA for control of the Western Cape government and the Cape Town city council.
Seeing the gap, the ANC, renews its Nat Attack with ‘Operation Shake, Rattle and Rollâ€, which aims to take advantage of the divisions in the DA to win over NNP supporters and officials. The ANC exploits the perception that the DA is an elitist party by taking up the concerns of predominantly coloured NNP branches in local government councils across the Western Cape. It begins to project itself as the party of the poor of the province.Â
ANC national executive committee members Steve Tshwete and Mosiuoa Lekota become part of the team that begins to negotiate with the NNP about securing a role for the party in national and provincial politics if it breaks with the DA.
In November 2001 the NNP splits from the DA and enters a ‘cooperation pact†with the ANC. The pact goes down like a lead balloon among NNP supporters, but the ANC keeps the party alive by giving NNP leader Martinus van Schalkwyk the premiership of the Western Cape.
In the April 2004 general election, the NNP crashes, with only 1,65% of the vote nationally. Van Schalkwyk is given the post of Minister of Environmental Affairs and Tourism in the national Cabinet.
In June, the NNP adopts the Freedom Charter, a key ANC policy document, at its federal council.
In August, Van Schalkwyk announces he is joining the ANC and calls on the rest of the NNP to do the same.
The view from the ground
All nine New National Party parliamentarians are Western Cape-based, one of the province’s last remaining strongholds. Just over half its 300 or so councillors are in the Western Cape.
Drakenstein (Paarl) councillor Bokkie Claasen is reluctant to say whether she will follow party leader Marthinus van Schalkwyk’s move into the African National Congress. ‘We haven’t decided yet.â€
On the West Coast some people are opposed to the move, says Vredendal-based NNP organiser Pierre-Jean Albertyn, but ‘it was expected, in a wayâ€. In Stellenbosch, where in 1914 the NNP’s forerunner was formed to represent Afrikaner interests, it is widely expected that many people will move to parties other than the ANC.
NNP organiser Dirk Oosthuizen, also Boland deputy mayor, says he is in favour of joining the ruling party: ‘The history of the NNP is of such a nature people will always refer to the NNP as the party with an apartheid history. The NNP has to do something about it,†he says.
The NNP’s death throes will be drawn out for over at least a year, until the floor-crossing period for national and provincial public representatives in September 2005. — Marianne Merten