NNP on way out, say experts
2004-04-15 23:42
Jan-Jan Joubert and Liezel de Lange
Pretoria - "The voters fled. They could not wait to get away from the New National Party," says Professor Susan Booysen of the University of Port Elizabeth.
The academic was commenting on the party's poor performance at the polls on Thursday.
"It started in 1996 when they walked out of the government of national unity. Since then, the party took several decisions on which they backtracked later."
This year's election results are a new low point for the party that played a major role in South African politics for 90 years and ran the country for 46 of them.
After the party won 20% of the vote in 1994 under the leadership of former president F W de Klerk, it dwindled in support to 7% under Van Schalkwyk in 1999 and, by Thursday night, looked set to get less than 2% of the vote.
The NNP could not be sure of any seats in provincial legislatures apart from those of the Northern and Western Cape.
Booysen had little doubt as to why this happened.
ANC links alienated many
"They appear hypocritical in their co-operation with the ANC and I believe the ANC knows this, but together they can govern the Western Cape."
Booysen predicted Van Schalkwyk would lose his position as Western Cape premier and that the ANC would appoint him as deputy minister to keep the premiership for the ANC.
Dr Sehlare Makgetlaneng of the Africa Institute of South Africa, said the NNP sent many of its voters to the Democratic Alliance and Independent Democrats through their close co-operation with the ANC.
"The NNP lost its identity."
Professor Roger Southall of the Human Sciences Research Council added that the NNP was naïve in its co-operation with the ANC - "They embraced the ANC just to be squashed by them now."
Meanwhile, pressure from some provinces is mounting on the NNP leadership to introduce radical reforms to what is left of the party.
There is a bitter anger against Van Schalkwyk in some parts of the provincial structures within the Western and Northern Cape.
NNP veterans are unhappy because the party leader so seldom left the Western Cape during the elections and, at the same time, centred power to such an extent that it made an own and unique provincial campaign impossible.
They are calling for a more-confederate structure, with more devolution of power to provinces.
Defeated provinces will have little say
However, the anger is impotent, because the collapse of the party countrywide is so dramatic that disgruntled provinces now have no influence.
Provincial performances in elections determine the composition of the party's highest executive body, the federal council.
Since about two-thirds of NNP support comes from the Western Cape - Van Schalkwyk's domain - it is unlikely the defeated provinces will have any say in the federal council.
Watch the provisional results of the national and provincial elections as they come in on News24.com