Patrick Cull on Monday

Focus on how NNP fares in by-election

WEDNESDAY’s by-election in Ward 43 of the Nelson Mandela Metropole has taken on considerable significance for a number of reasons and the major partners are agreed that it promises to be a close contest.

And it has attracted a good deal of interest despite the fact that the result will have no bearing on the power balance in the metropole.

While the battle for victory in a seat held by the Democratic Alliance will no doubt be between the ANC and DA, a lot of interest will focus on just how the New National Party fares.

This is the first by-election it has contested in the Eastern Cape since its ill-fated marriage with the Democratic Party ended in an acrimonious divorce and it is in a Uitenhage that is one of the areas where it still has some kind of structures.

Just to what extent those structures are still in place remains to be seen, particularly as the man who held them together, MP Wilhelm le Roux, joined the DA during the window period when parliamentarians were permitted to cross the floor.

That was a heavy blow for the NNP in the Eastern Cape where the party has been hit by a series of defections that stretches back to before the 1999 election when Tertius Delport, a former provincial leader and MEC, joined the then Democratic Party.

A second provincial leader, Manie Schoeman, was expelled from the NNP for his quite correct opposition to the marriage with the DP.

It is extraordinarily ironic that having expelled Dr Schoeman for objecting to the union with the DP on the grounds that a major black party was not involved as agreed to by the Federal Council, that the NNP should now have an alliance with the ANC.

Dr Schoeman joined the ANC and was returned to the National Assembly, where he now finds himself in an alliance with the party that expelled him for insisting that it do precisely what it did after the DA break up.

Mr Le Roux was the third provincial leader to depart, leaving stalwart Anne Nash to hold the fort as the lone MPL at Bisho and Alie van Jaarsveld as the sole Eastern Cape MP in the National Assembly.

The dilemma facing the NNP, as it seeks to convince the voting public that it is still a force to be reckoned with, is aptly captured in one of its posters that proclaims: “Keep Religion in Schools” – an issue on which it can happily campaign without annoying its big brother.

The other poster it has put up states: “DA: Bark without Bite” – a statement that is in one sense true of virtually any opposition party in the world but, one presumes, is supposed to convey that through its alliance with the ANC, the NNP does have “bite” or in other words “influence”. That is a matter for another debate.

It is critically important for the NNP to make a solid showing on Wednesday if it is to be regarded as a player in next year’s election.

There may be some satisfaction in splitting the vote between itself and its arch-foe, the DA, as it did in Stellenbosch, so handing the municipal seat to the ANC, but ultimately that only provides ammunition for the DA in the next electoral round.

The NNP is obviously regarding the by-election as a critical test of its support as it is fielding its national leader, Marthinus van Schalkwyk, at a public meeting tonight.

That the NNP may take enough of the vote to deny it victory is obviously of great concern to the DA.

The DA has been “on a roll” as far as municipal by-elections are concerned, having swept almost all opposition aside and handing telling defeats to the NNP in areas such as Swellendam and Kimberley, a town where it would have hardly have warranted a mention in an election battle as recently as 1999.

It clearly regards taking seats in by-elections as part of a strategy that not only projects it as a winning party in the minds of the electorate as the only opposition to the ANC, but also keeps up the momentum of its organisation as it moves towards next year’s national and provincial polls.

It does not want to lose that momentum. If the NNP does split the vote and in doing so hands victory to the ANC, there will be a reason for the loss, but it will not be something the DA will savour with any relish.

It needs to annihilate the NNP if it is to make good on its boast that it will replace the United Democratic Movement as the official opposition at Bisho after 2004.

Provincial leader Athol Trollip as obviously already dismissed the UDM’s chances of retaining that status next year, saying at a public meeting on Thursday that the position of official opposition was currently vacant.

The ANC has probably the least to lose in Wednesday’s showdown.

In the 2000 election it won 480 votes to the DA’s 2 025 in a low poll – Wednesday will probably see a repeat of this as a large number of the 7 500 eligible voters are either not registered or are missing.

The UDM polled 109 votes, but its trump card in the area, Christopher Martin, has moved to the ANC. That translates to just more than 18 per cent of the vote.

It is not going to fare that badly this time around, particularly as it has put a number of key canvassers in the field who are very familiar with both the area and its people and who have been working hard.

If the ANC even slashes the DA majority – in all fairness that was the DP and NNP combined – it will be able to claim that it is making inroads into DA support; if it wins either an outright victory or sneaks in on a split vote, it will have damaged the opposition to some extent.

Further, the ANC has not pursued by-election victories with the same vigour as the DA and whether it loses or not, it will still have overwhelming control of the metropole and is in absolutely no danger of being replaced at Bisho.

It is the only party that is effectively in a win-win situation – how the other parties must wish they were in a similar position.

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