On 2nd Feb. 1990 F.W. De Klerk started removing the National Party from the political landscape of S.A. He set in motion a process whereby he would abdicate power to a democratic constitution, and through that, to the ANC.
He would also sacrifice all the powers of patronage that the NP Government used for more than 50 years to bolster and consolidate its control over the country. For the NP this created a trauma that it could not, and would not survive. Progressively out-negotiated into the ramifications of being just another party in a liberal democracy, it enjoyed a brief interim period as a junior partner in a Government of National Unity. However, when the final constitution was adopted in May 1996, De Klerk withdrew from government and all active politics a few months later.
With his departure the NP died and the NNP was born. With the old NP support base eroded, its voters disillusioned and apathetic, the NNP was condemned from the outset to scavenge for any kind of support in order to have some political relevance. It found some in the Western Cape where it could still exploit the remnants of Tri-Cameral politics to cling to some kind of power.
It was this fragile power base which it offered to the DP as a bargaining chip when they formed the Democratic Alliance (DA). That this Alliance has now unraveled, comes as no surprise.
It is useful to keep in mind that opposition politics in South Africa, from 1974 to the present, whether as part of the old racist Parliament or the current democratic one, has always been involved in wheeling and dealing.
Realignments of some kind: mergers, take-overs, alliances, partnerships etc have been an enduring feature of opposition politics. Why? A very important reason, and still valid for the time being, is that within the context of parliamentary politics, of whatever kind, from 1948 until the present, no opposition party, or a combination of them, has been able to pose an electoral threat to the government in power. Put another way, for 53 years SA has never experienced an electoral change of government. It is simply not part of our political memory. Both the NP in the past and the ANC currently constitute the government in a one dominant party Parliament. If parliamentary politics were dominated by two large parties contesting for government the whole style of inter-party competition would be vastly different. Now opposition parties thrash about at local and provincial level for some incremental advantage and relevance. At national level, Parliament is used to "play politics", not to change government. This may not be as silly as it sounds. With it comes all the supporting institutions necessary to underpin an emerging democracy: a free press and judiciary and a growing, vigorous civil society amongst other things. But these are not the primary concerns of electoral politics. Getting votes is.
This partly explains why current opposition politics is preoccupied with two broad strategies; either one opposition party cannibalising other opposition parties, or chipping away at the support base of the governing party. Over the years the best cannibalisers, by far, have been the Progs, the forerunners of the current DP/DA. They ate up the old United Party by forming the PRP, then the PFP. They then chipped away at the NP by forming the DP (remember Dennis Worral and Wynand Malan?). They were well on their way to eating up the NNP by forming the DA. The NNP saw its last few bargaining chips disappearing, jumped ship and started wheeling and dealing with the ANC for a place in the political sun. The NNP are just natural born scavengers, and the DP/DA natural born cannibals. Unfortunately for the DP/DA, they find it very difficult to change their diet and cannot find any more victims to devour. They now seriously have to look for voters.
For a considerable period of time, if ever, the DP/DA will not be able to go to the polls and say: "Vote for us, we are going to be the Government". To do so would be to stretch credulity beyond all limits. Therefore they are condemned to "fight back", "stand tall", "protect democracy", "be watchdogs" etc. This may not be as futile as it sounds. It can contribute to the broadening of a democratic culture. On the other hand, given the diet that has sustained opposition politics in the past, i.e. getting white votes, the ANC is not going to allow the "legacy of the past", to fall into disuse in the game of Parliamentary politics. It will continue to paint the DP/DA in a racial corner for as long as it is useful to do so. Suddenly we are confronted with the extraordinary spectacle of the ANC presenting the NNP as "true South Africans", who have "buried the past" and want to "build the future together", whereas the DP/DA want to protect "white privilege" and "keep the past alive". For the uninformed it almost sounds as if the NNP fought apartheid tooth and nail, all its life, and the DP/DA created it. It certainly is a puzzling time in electoral politics in SA and it is very difficult to see how the DP/DA is going to crawl out of this hole on their own. The leader of the party better watch his back very carefully. It will come as no surprise if, in the not too distant future, a few of his representatives will end up in the folds of the ANC. All of this however, bears very little consequences for the electoral change of government in the foreseeable future. For that we have to look elsewhere than opposition politics.
Holding regular elections is not the final test of whether a country is a democracy. It may be a necessary condition but it is not sufficient. The real test comes when the party in power is electorally challenged to hand over power peacefully to anther party that has won more votes. This is one of the defining moments of whether a country qualifies as being a democracy.
When a government does so, it honours the principle of contingent consent i.e. the party in power does not abuse its electoral victory, to prevent parties that have lost, the opportunity of winning next time, and this is contingent, on the parties who lose, accepting the right of the party that won, to govern until next time. This principle is flagrantly and viciously disregarded right now in Zimbabwe and, for the sake of sanity in discourse, it is not a "racist" comment to make such an observation. This principle has often been violated all over the world. Gerrymandering and rigging elections, is not an African invention.
As has been said, for the last 53 years, SA has not been confronted with this test. Is it likely to be in the foreseeable future? Well now, this becomes an increasingly fascinating question. Not because of the wheeling and dealing going on in opposition. That does not threaten the principle of contingent consent. But what about the growing opposition within the ANC itself? Because the ANC Alliance holds, SA is one dominant party democracy, not the same as a one party state. However, within the Alliance there is increasingly strident and often quite provocative talk about "a break up", "forming a new party", "mobilising the masses to "left" of the ANC" etc.
Some openly say, "the Alliance is dead". Certainly it is early days, but what would be the implications for electoral politics in SA if these internal tensions mature into an open split? Just suppose the breakaway results in a labour-based, quasi-populist party with growing support amongst migrant workers, the poor and unemployed, and largely concentrated in industrial areas?
So far the ANC has been "tolerant" in losing two provinces to opposition:
the Western Cape and Kwa-Zulu Natal. This is good for democratic consolidation and strengthening the principle of contingent consent. But it could be argued that these provinces have politics peculiar to themselves that, on their own, do not threaten to unseat Government (The one dominated by factors of race, the other by ethnicity. The current romance between the N.N P and the ANC. may even weaken the racial divide in the Western Cape).But what would happen if the ANC., for example, loses Gauteng and the Eastern Cape to a party with demonstrable black majority support. Such an opposition party's rallying cry is definitely not going to be: "Stand Tall", "Fight Back" or some such inter-varsity exhortation. More likely it is going to be: "Let us take power to the people", "Away with GEAR", "Forward to delivery" etc.
Should such a situation develop, the landscape of current electoral politics will change beyond imagination. Does this sound farfetched? Certainly not as farfetched as saying: "The DP/DA will be in power after two elections." Opposition politics will not then be about scavenging and cannibalising but about challenging for government Should such a challenge be successful and the A.N.C has to hand over power peacefully, it would be the defining moment for the resilience of our young democracy. Will those supporting institutions underpinning democracy come under threat as the incumbent tries to rig electoral politics in order to cling to power, (as is happening in Zimbabwe at the moment), or will these institutions be used to facilitate electoral transition and further consolidate democracy?
In the meantime, it is almost mandatory that the ANC being the incumbent party will try to minimise the possibility and size of the split; demonise those who cause it; tighten party control; and cautiously look for new partners and friends to off set the potential loss to "the left". Most likely, and quite unintentionally, the NNP has exploited its own coincidence by referring to the ANC as "a party of the centre". Who knows, even the DP/DA support base may become more and more attractive to the ANC.
Electoral politics has the habit of forcing the most extraordinary bed fellows under the same blanket. One thing is quite certain: in considering the possible permutations of political alignments in the foreseeable future of parliamentary politics in South Africa, one should not restrain one's imagination in any way.