Yesterday (Saturday 05 June) was the NNP federal council meeting and the weekend press is reporting that they have decided to "strengthen and deepen the relationship of cooperation between the two parties (ANC & NNP)", said NNP leader Marthinus van Schalkwyk. In short they have decided that their future lies with the ANC and certainly they have no other future.
The irony here is beautiful. The ANC and NNP are the two giants of South African political history as they clashed over apartheid and now with apartheid dead the NNP is being swallowed by the ANC so that soon it will, like apartheid, cease to exist.
Further in what must be the biggest turn around for any political party anywhere in the world the NNP statement referred to the Freedom Charter when they said;
"The Freedom Charter, as adopted by the Congress of the People on June 26, 1955 and the Constitution of the republic of South Africa, which embodies the principles of the charter, should form the common departure point from which the two parties will develop future policies and plan for the development of South Africa,"
I have to be honest and say that when the NNP got some 20% of the vote in 1994 I was mortified and have always held the view that the best option for the NNP was disbandment and consignment to the history books of shame. It’s not playing out exactly as I had hoped but certainly the day that the NNP no longer exists in any form apart from memory and history books is fast approaching.
Further decimation of the NNP will happen in September when local councils have their floor crossing window period and I confidently predict that the vast majority of NNP councils will find themselves new homes.
So van Schalkwyk will bumble along for the moment as the leader of a non-entity party (and minister of environmental affairs) and I would suggest that in the lead up to the 2005/6 local government elections the NNP will fully disband with the few remaining members moving to whatever party they feel will give them the time of the day.
So in short the NNP is finally fading away and this is a fitting end to a party that disserviced South Africa for 46 years. Rather to fade away then go out with a bang.
I found it quite ironic that before the elections FW De Klerk was writing op-eds in The Argus saying how opposition parties must work closely with the ANC, when he was responsible for taking the NNP out of the government of national unity and sending the NNP into the death spiral it's in now...
Posted by: Farrel Lifson | June 07, 2004 at 10:41 AM
Good riddance. My only regret is that Nats should have never came into power in 1948.
Posted by: Vaz Lube | June 07, 2004 at 08:33 AM