Wednesday’s municipal election will prove that about 250 000 voters who supported the now-defunct New National Party in 2004 did not follow Marthinus van Schalkwyk into the African National Congress, Freedom Front Plus leader Pieter Mulder said on Monday.
Van Schalkwyk, the last leader of the NNP when it disbanded early last year, was appointed Minister of Environmental Affairs and Tourism by President Thabo Mbeki.
Briefing the media in Port Elizabeth, Mulder said the FF+ has seen many parties come and go.
”When the election takes place on Wednesday, the last NNP council members will vacate their seats and the last chapter of the 92-year history of a party which has had the most incisive influence on South African history will come to an end.
”More than a quarter of a million voters still supported the NNP two years ago in the 2004 elections. We strongly believe that those people did not follow Mr Marthinus van Schalkwyk to the ANC. This election will prove it,” Mulder said.
The FF+ offers a home to those people, and has already welcomed a number of pre-eminent NNP members and others from other political parties into its midst.
”The FF+ offers a home to Afrikaners who love South Africa and who love its people, but who would like to see that democracy is entrenched to such an extent that South Africa will be seen as a community of communities, that offers a home and a place for all in the sun.”
Explaining the FF+’s election slogan, ”More than just opposition”, Mulder said: ”We are more than that. We believe that the need is not for a better government or a better opposition, but for a better deal, or dispensation.
”We need to deepen democracy. We need to give communities, and in particular minorities, the assurance that South Africa is home to all of them.
”And we need to improve the prospects of minorities in this country as well.”
This is why the FF+ undertook its drive to source skilled unemployed or underemployed South Africans to help ease the country’s skills shortage.
”We see this as an important breakthrough for our politics of being more than just opposition.”
Mulder predicted that after Wednesday, a situation where one party alone cannot take control will exist in many municipalities.
In such cases, coalitions will be formed to appoint a mayor.
”We are participating in the majority of those municipalities and we believe that the FF+ could hold the balance of power in those councils after the elections, which will be used to the advantage of our supporters and the principles contained in our manifesto.”
The FF+ is for the first time contesting the municipal elections in all nine provinces, all six metropoles and a further 141 municipalities — more than 1 700 wards in total.
Far from being written off after some setbacks in the 1999 elections, the FF+ is generally accepted as a serious contender and a legitimate voice of its support base, Mulder said. — Sapa