Greetings all

The last few weeks have seen an interesting political scenario unfolding here in the Western Cape. Matters came to a head on Friday evening with the announcement by Marthinus van Schalkwyk, leader of the New National Party (NNP), of the NNP Federal Council's decision to formally break ties with their alliance partners in the Democratic Alliance (DA).

For those of you who have become a bit rusty since your visit to South Africa I include the next section, "Background", as a bit of a refresher. Those of you who are up to steam, just ignore it and skip to "The problems start".

Background.

In February 1990, President FW de Klerk, leader of the National Party (NP), announced the unbanning of the African National Congress (ANC), South African Communist Party and other liberation movements as well as the imminent release of Nelson Mandela. In 1994 after our first democratic elections, the NP and other parties joined the ANC in a Government of National Unity (GNU). In this election, the Western Cape Province was won outright by the NP in the provincial elections and the ANC was invited to join the NP in a Government of Provincial Unity (GPU). Both these forms of government allowed for the opposition to hold positions on the executive.

In 1996, immediately after the adoption of our new constitution, FW de Klerk announced the NP's decision to withdraw from the GNU and at the same time kicked the ANC out of the GPU in the Western Cape. This was followed up by the NP's "re-inventing itself" as the New National Party (NNP) - a party ready to address the needs of the poor and prove that a viable alternative to the ANC was possible in the new South Africa. The NP had garnered 60% of the vote in the province and therefore felt confident enough of the support of the electorate to make such a bold step. Needless to say, the ANC, still smarting from the hiding it got at the polls (33,3%) in 1994 provincial election, did not take this eviction very well. What followed was a series of "gaffs" on the part of the NNP which did not endear it to the electorate. The ANC capitalised on these blunders, (made some of their own too), but generally showed a more mature face as the opposition in the province during the period. A number of defections from all parties, but most significantly from the NNP just prior to the 1999 national and provincial elections, led to the NNP having to rethink it's strategy both nationally and provincially.

During the 1999 elections, the Democratic Party (DP) supplanted the NP or NNP, as they were now called, as the official opposition at a national level. In the Western Cape the ANC made significant gains and garnered the majority of the votes (42,8%) in the province followed by the combined poll of the NNP and the DP (48%). By convincing the smaller parties to join forces to "keep the ANC out" they mustered together a coalition to govern the province.

The defections from the NNP, the bad performance in the national and provincial elections, the stepping down of FW de Klerk in 1998 as party leader (to be replaced by the 28-year old Marthinus van Schalkwyk) and the internal wrangling within the party led to much media speculation of the pending demise of the NNP. For the NNP the writing must have been on the wall. The decision was then taken to form an alliance of the DP, NNP, Freedom Front (FF) and some other minuscule parties under the banner of the Democratic Alliance (DA). The DA would contest the local government elections, which forms the 3rd tier of government, in December 2000. The formation of the Alliance with Tony Leon, the leader of the DP as the alliance leader and Marthinus van Schalkwyk, the NNP leader as his deputy, lent the NNP a valuable political lifeline.

However, this marriage "of convenience" seemed an odd one to begin with. Both partners, the DP and the NNP, had their own (differing) reasons for climbing into bed with each other. The DP needed the NNP to deliver the "coloured" and the working class vote to bolster it's constituency and the NNP needed the protection or muscle that the official opposition, (the DP at a national level), could afford them. The NNP had indeed partially succeeded in transforming itself post 1996 - they were concerned about working class issues and attracted most of their votes from that constituency. The DP (in my opinion) was and still is, a White liberal party totally at odds with the needs of the poorer people of South Africa. It was from this platform, "keep the ANC out", "Fight Back" (read Fight Black), "ANC will turn SA into another Zimbabwe", as well as the rates issue; that the DA contested the local government elections in December 2000. Both the DP and the NNP delivered to each other what they individually wanted and as a result beat the ANC in the Western Cape by 53% to 38%.

The first emphatic action taken to stamp their authority on the City of Cape Town was to summarily fire each of the senior civil servants appointed by the ANC or whom they thought were sympathetic to the ANC and replace them with White males (mainly). This was done with no regard to the efficiency or popularity of the individuals concerned. To appease their "junior" partners in the alliance (the NNP) they again emulated what they had done after the 1999 elections by agreeing to having Peter Marais stand as the mayoral candidate for the Unicity of Cape Town - They made Gerald Morkel Premier (Governor) of the province after 1999.

Now Peter Marais is a loud-mouthed buffoon, a loose cannon who's mouth works faster than his brain and a person for whom I have had no respect since he first came to the public's attention in the early 1980's. He was then the leader of the People's Congress Party (PCP) and unlike the famous brand of peanuts (which at least tasted good and had nice packaging) he and his party had nothing of value to offer the electorate.

At a provincial level the DP had given all of the important executive positions to its members and the left-overs were shared by the NNP. In the Cape Town Unicity, all of the senior decision-making positions were held by White male members of the DP. The NNP had been effectively stymied while the ANC in opposition watched from the wings.

The problems start

The ANC, as part of its local government election manifesto, promised a percentage of free water and electricity to the electorate should it come into power. Without knowing how the ANC planned to implement this, the DA adopted this as part of their manifesto as well. The DA did implement it, albeit a little later than promised. What did not go down well was that the "free" water and electricity was in fact not free in that the actual cost of the of these services was recovered by a simultaneous price hike.

The ANC had been calling for property rates (taxes) to be recalculated so that people in the more affluent areas payed more for the superior infrastructure that they enjoyed. The DA used this as part of their election campaign to scare the White electorate into believing that if the ANC came into power, they (Whites) would be severely penalised. They proposed a standard rating across the board. When this was implemented the poorer people objected because they were the ones who were now being finacially disadvantaged without the benefit of improved services or infrastructure.

The residents of Newlands, a formerly White suburb, (and currently still largely is) which houses an international cricket and an international rugby stadium, objected to the rugby stadium being used as a home ground for Ajax Cape Town (a local professional soccer team). Soccer is still popularly perceived to be a "Black sport". The residents felt that having "hordes of soccer thugs" passing through their neighbourhood every weekend would make the area unsafe. The Unicity mayor, Peter Marais, agreed with the residents and refused to give his blessing for Ajax to base it's home ground there. The millions of soccer fans nationally did not take to his decision. The South African Football Association decided that the national team (Bafana Bafana) would never play in Cape Town again until the decision was reversed.

During our Winter months the Western Cape experienced the heaviest rainfall in over 40 years. The Cape Flats was subjected to worst flooding in recent history and many people were left homeless. Aid came in from all quarters but (noticeably) slowest from the Unicity. The residents of Khyalitsha held a meeting to decide upon a plan of action. Our esteemed mayor, Peter Marais, arrived at this meeting unannounced and demanded to be given a hearing from the podium. He proceeded to berate the people for their lack of patience (often using the term "you people"). Needless to say, he was booed out of the hall and virtually chased away from the meeting.

Our honourable mayor then decided that he would rename two of Cape Town's oldest streets (Adderley and Wale) after former presidents Mandela and de Klerk respectively. He was reminded that the decision to do this was not his and that he needed to gauge the feelings of the people of Cape Town first. To which he responded by getting his office to commission some research. At a full sitting of the council he informed tham that his research proved conclusively that the renaming carried the blessing of the people. As it turned out, the research took the form of a petition and that hundreds of the signatories to the petition had been completed in the handwriting of a couple of people. Some of the names were those of people who did not even exist.

These and other goings-on by the Alderman was constantly being brought to the attention of the leader of the DA, Tony Leon. He, "in the interest of good governance" set up a commission of enquiry headed by former Judge Heath. Judge Heath found Marais guilty of dishonesty, misleading the public and bring the DA into disrepute. Tony Leon suspended Marais. The NNP quickly set up an internal enquiry which exonerated Marais. Marthinus van Schalkwyk, who since the elections had been gradually sidelined, stepped up to bat for Marais. van Schalkwyk accused Leon of being racist - this was going to be his challenge for the leadership of the DA. Marais decided, in defiance of Leon to return to work.

The newspapers revealed that our largest bank (ABSA) had written off a R6million debt of the NNP's. The Reserve Bank stepped in. ABSA retracted by saying that R1million had been repayed and that an agreement had been reached whereby the NNP "would pay what it could when it was in a better financial position". Leon cried foul accusing the NNP of using the DA to secretly pay off it's bad debt to ABSA. van Schalkwyk had painted himself into a corner and threatened to pull out of the alliance while secretly having talks with the ANC. Leon called a meeting of the DA's disciplinary committee (made up of mainly DP members). The committee decided on Friday morning that Marais should be fired and that van Schalkwyk should tender a public apology to Leon and the DA.

The DA leader, Tony Leon went a stage further citing insubordination and deceit as his main criteria and publicly called for the NNP to disband as a party.

On Friday evening, after a hastily convened meeting of the NNP Federal Council, it was decided that the NNP would withdraw from the DA and seek a new political home with a party more in line with it's ideals and aspirations.

At a meeting of the ANC's 3-yearly Leadership Conference on Saturday, the leader of the ANC in the Western Cape, Ebrahim Rasool, gleefully announces that the ANC will soon be running the province and the Unicity. He is quickly brought back to earth by the ANC's national secretary general, Kgalema Motlanthe, who cautions about being over-hasty. The ANC will decide who, when and how it is ready to form alliances or coalitions.

The Minister of Defense, Patrick Lekota announces a motion to be table in parliament allowing for members to cross the floor (defect). Speculation has it, that as this would involve changing the constitution, the motion will call for a "window period" of say two weeks for this "crossing of the floor" to happen only during periods of political crisis - such as now.

Quo Vadis ANC?

The current scenario where the local government elections were fought under the banner of the newly constituted Democratic Alliance (DA) creates a crisis within South African politics. The NNP is the second biggest partner in the DA. In reality the DA is no more without them - just the DP and a handful of other people. Legally each of the seats won by the DA and held by an NNP member, should now be subjected to a by-election. Given the widespread success of the DA in the local government elections, we could see as many as 200 by-elections taking place. This country can ill-afford this so the motion mentioned in #10 above makes a lot of sense.

The status of the provincial government very definitely is going to change with the ANC getting what it has been salivating over since 1994. However, I would hope that it will be via a coalition and not an alliance with the NNP. Much as I believe that the NNP holds dear some of the values of the ANC, I as a member of the ANC, am not ready to stand shoulder to shoulder with the self-same party that was responsible for all the pain and destruction leading up to 1994. They may have re-constituted themselves but the scars for this old activist still run very deep. Besides which, the NNP carry with them a lot of baggage (as well as Peter Marais) and anything closer than a coalition partnership could well backfire in our faces at a later stage.

The chasm between the ANC and the DP is far too big to consider a working relationship with them. Even though, ironically, the ANC and IFP govern KwaZulu Natal as coalition partners, the DP and the ANC have joined hands in contesting a few issues in that province.

We live in interesting times. Once the ANC is in power in the province the trick will be to stay in power and the only way that can be done is to deliver on those promises that we accused the NNP/DP/DA of not being able to. Bear in mind also that 2004 is around the corner and voters will remember how we gloated over the demise of the DA - Snooze you lose.

Conclusion

Thanks for reading. I would value your comments - good or otherwise. I just felt that I had to write this one.

Till later

Clive