Beginning of the End

The peaceful transition from white racist minority domination to black majority rule in South Africa was one of the great political and social surprises of the late 20th century. The next surprise could be nearly as staggering: a marriage between the National Party that created apartheid and the movement that conquered it, the African National Congress. But, as top officials from both parties began match-making talks in early November, the prevailing view outside of the proposed partnership was that the marriage would end in tears and the party of apartheid would finally disappear forever.

After the 1994 election that resulted in majority rule by Nelson Mandela's A.N.C., the National Party under former president F.W. de Klerk was part of a government of national unity. It was an uneasy alliance that lasted only two years. Now, calling themselves the New National Party and under new leadership, the Afrikaans-speaking nationalists — mostly descended from white Dutch and other European settlers — are openly talking of joining with the A.N.C.

In a speech in the House of Assembly in October that got a standing ovation from A.N.C. legislators, N.N.P. leader Marthinus van Schalkwyk waxed lyrical about being part of "the building team" of a South African renaissance. In reply, President Thabo Mbeki gushed that Van Schalkwyk had shown inspiring "commitment to a common destiny." A.N.C. chairman Mosiuoa Lekota — whose guerrilla nickname when he was fighting the apartheid regime was "Terror" — said the Afrikaans and black communities "shared similar loyalties" and that committees had been set up to "explore cooperation" between the A.N.C. and N.N.P. at all levels of government.

The N.N.P.'s move is a bizarre political about-face that is being treated with a lot of skepticism in opposition circles. When support for the nationalists fell in the 1999 general election, Van Schalkwyk called for minority parties to create a united front against the A.N.C. Now, in order to make its overtures to the A.N.C., Van Schalkwyk's party had to divorce itself from just such a united front: the Democratic Alliance, whose leading member is the liberal Democratic Party, which emerged as the largest opposition in the 1999 election. The N.N.P. made the break in October.

The A.N.C. now seems set on pushing legislation through parliament to encourage such political defections. In return for crossing the floor, Van Schalkwyk and a few others of his party are likely to be offered posts by the A.N.C. in national and provincial governments while the Democratic Party — still in alliance with a small whites-only federalist party — continues to be the voice of opposition.

The Democratic Party has labeled the N.N.P.'s switch of allegiance as "political opportunism at its most promiscuous." Members of the A.N.C.'s left-wing alliance partners in the South African Communist Party and the Congress of South African Trade Unions have also expressed misgivings about working with a party that bears the stigma of apartheid. The leader of the Democratic Party, Tony Leon, says there are many members of the New National Party who would like to stay with the Democratic Alliance. "We're going onward and forward," he says. "It is obvious to everyone now that the N.N.P. is about to disappear into oblivion."

He could be right. Helen Suzman, at 84 South Africa's veteran liberal voice, says that the deal with the D.P. was "the kiss of life to the then terminally-ill National Party. If they go to the A.N.C., then good riddance to them. They won't last long."

The National Party has been in existence under various names since 1914 and ruled, without interruption, from 1948 to 1994, during which time it put racial segregation — apartheid — into the statute book before being forced, by world pressure and internal black dissent, to remove it. In order to survive, the party has had to make many changes. De Klerk resigned from the post-apartheid government and the party because, he said, he did not want to be a part of the "apartheid baggage of the past." He was replaced by Van Schalkwyk, an articulate 37-year-old managerial whiz kid, whose boyish, bespectacled appearance soon earned him the tag kortbroeke, or short-pants. Van Schalkwyk has desperately tried to rub out the lingering image of the old National Party, but he has its history of hatred and oppression to contend with. His proposal of marriage to the A.N.C. could be a political kiss of death — "I wish them [the N.N.P. and the A.N.C.] a merry Christmas," says Suzman, "because it will probably be their first and last together."

Kortbroeke, many South Africans prophesy, could end up sonderbroeke — without pants.