The battle for a stronger opposition to the African National Congress

Zille links up with de Lille

IT IS rare for the leader of a political party to appear on the platform at a rival’s congress, even more so to be welcomed with a standing ovation. But that is what Patricia de Lille of South Africa’s Independent Democrats (ID) received at a recent meeting of the Democratic Alliance (DA), the country’s main opposition party, when she indicated that the two parties were close to clinching a formal agreement to co-operate at next year’s municipal elections. This, she said, would be an “engagement” ahead of a full “marriage”. That could be consummated only at the next general election, in 2014, as South Africa’s constitution in effect bars mergers between polls; MPs who change their party allegiance automatically lose their seats.

The merger will barely affect national politics except to shore up the DA in the Western Cape, the only one of nine provinces not controlled by the African National Congress (ANC). Nationwide the ID is tiny: in the last general election, in 2009, it got less than 1% of the vote, returning four MPs. But the merger would give the new entity a chance of doing well in the Northern Cape. Its backing is biggest among mixed-race coloureds, who make up about 9% of the 49m South Africans. Ms de Lille is a coloured former trade unionist and a doughty anti-corruption campaigner.

But tackling the ANC behemoth is a daunting challenge. Its leading role in the struggle against apartheid still secures it the loyalty of a large majority. It got 66% in the latest election, to the DA’s 17%. The Congress of the People (COPE), a breakaway from the ANC that set itself up as a party two years ago, came third in the election, taking 7% of the votes, but has since imploded in a welter of vicious faction-fighting and court cases. Mvume Dandala, its parliamentary leader and presidential candidate in 2009, resigned his post and his place as an MP this month, lamenting that the party’s very existence was “under threat”. Likewise, the Zulu-based Inkatha Freedom Party, which got less than 5% and 18 seats in 2009, recently postponed a conference as officials loyal to Mangosuthu Buthelezi, its veteran leader, sought to quash his deputy’s bid for the crown.

The liberal DA will not make bigger inroads unless it changes its image as a party for whites and other minorities. So it is also talking to COPE. An electoral alliance of the DA, the ID and COPE would have a bit more credibility in the black townships than the DA alone. Helen Zille, the DA’s leader, insists that voters want South African politics to be “an open contest of ideas and values”, rather than driven by race: a fine aspiration but a far cry from reality.