The Democratic Alliance killed off the New National Party because the DA provided a principled, non-racial alternative to the ANC, (African National Congress) as opposed to the NNP’s ”tergiversation”, DA leader Tony Leon said on Friday.
Writing in his weekly newsletter, Leon referred to the NNP’s demise saying it was ironic NNP leader Marthinus van Schalkwyk had only a few months ago called the DA a ”dead-end party”.
”He had things exactly the wrong way round.
”The DA, in fact, killed off the NNP because we provided a principled, non-racial alternative to the ANC and a far more effective opposition — certainly in the view of the NNP’s former voters, who stayed with the DA even when the NNP’s leaders bolted,” he said.
Van Schalkwyk and his conduct in South African public life over the past decade was completely defined by an obscure old English word dating from the sixteenth century — ”tergiversation”.
The Oxford Abridged English Dictionary defined tergiversation as, among other things, ”the act of turning one’s back or forsaking something in which one was previously engaged or interested, turning in a dishonourable manner from straightforward action or statement, and the turning of the back for flight”.
Having previously committed to the cause of strong opposition, Van Schalkwyk and the NNP were now the lackeys of one-party dominance.
”They used to speak plainly about the ANC’s misbehaviour, but now they sing its praises. They used to fight elections, but now they have turned and fled, leaving their voters behind,” Leon said.
In 2000, when the DA was formed from the Democratic Party and the NNP, Van Schalkwyk became deputy leader and spoke passionately of, among other things, the need ”to keep the ANC out”.
Leon said the tergiversation began when the NNP’s leaders decided, for their own self-seeking reasons, to abandon the DA.
At first, they had insisted they would not join the ANC, and Van Schalkwyk in particular was adamant, declaring the NNP was not going into an alliance with the ANC.
In the 2004 election, Van Schalkwyk and the NNP kept insisting the party would maintain its own identity and it would not join the ANC.
In the NNP’s election manifesto, Van Schalkwyk declared ”one party should not hold all power” and asked the voters to ”let us be your voice”.
”Now, of course, Mr Van Schalkwyk and the NNP leaders have broken their promises, and have committed to joining the ANC,” Leon said.
”Mr Van Schalkwyk now says that ‘we do not have a one-party state’ and that the ANC’s 70% majority is ‘democracy in action’.
”That is nothing less than tergiversation in the purest sense. Mr Van Schalkwyk has sold out the voters, and the very ideals of South African democracy, to secure his own job and protect the petty interests of his cronies.
”Clearly, Mr Van Schalkwyk’s surrender represents the worst kind of betrayal of the voters, a backroom deal that was negotiated by an elite group of insiders interested in trading perks for power, and which was concluded against the will and interest of the ordinary members of both the ANC and the NNP,” Leon said. – Sapa