Founded 1997 Preceded by National Party | Dissolved 2005 | |
 | ||
Leader Marthinus van Schalkwyk Merged into African National Congress Ideology Conservatism,
Afrikaner nationalism | ||
The New National Party (NNP) was a South African conservative political party formed in 1997 when the National Party pulled out of the Government of National Unity with the African National Congress (ANC) and decided to change its name in the process. The name change was an attempt to distance itself from its apartheid past, and reinvent itself as a moderate, non-racist federal party. The attempt was largely unsuccessful, and in 2005 the New National Party voted to disband itself.
The party's first leader was former president of South Africa F. W. de Klerk, the winner with Nelson Mandela of the Nobel Peace Prize for his role in dismantling apartheid. De Klerk was succeeded by Marthinus van Schalkwyk until the eventual disbanding and merger of the party with the African National Congress.
The New National Party had some difficulty carving out a political base in post-apartheid South Africa. On the one hand, it still had the legacy of its role under apartheid. On the other hand, it seemed uncertain about its relationship with the government led by the ANC and seemed unable to decide whether it was in a political alliance with the ANC or in opposition. These two issues led to defections to the Democratic Party, which had a historical legacy of being anti-apartheid and was clearly an opposition party to the ANC. It also lost support to other parties.
The NNP fared poorly in the general election of 1999. With 6.87% of the vote, the party lost votes both to the DP and ANC as well as its status as the official opposition nationally and in most provinces. But it remained influential in the Western Cape, despite being pushed into second place there by the ANC. The party faced comparatively smaller losses in the province due to the retention of most of its coloured support. 50% of its votes now came from this one province, and it was seemingly becoming a regional political force without much national significance. The party remained in power in the Western Cape through a coalition with the DP. It then began to plan a merger with the Democratic Party in 2000, for which purpose the DP changed name to Democratic Alliance (DA).
By 2001 the party had broken away from the DA and instead entered close co-operation with the ANC, including forming an ANC-NNP coalition in the Western Cape.
Decline and merger with the ANC
During the general election of 2004, the NNP was almost eliminated from parliament. Much of its support deserted the party, due to unhappiness with its alliance with the ANC, and its share of the national vote dropped from 6.87% in 1999 to 1.65%, having been 20.4% under the National Party name in 1994. The party was all but wiped out in most provinces and retained only limited pockets of large support in the Western Cape, where it was pushed into a distant third place behind the Democratic Alliance in its former stronghold.
With the former governing party now only the sixth largest in the country, questions were asked about its long-term future, and the leadership of van Schalkwyk. Despite his party's poor performance in the polls, van Schalkwyk was given the cabinet post of Minister of Environmental Affairs and Tourism, as a reward for aligning the NNP with the ANC.
At its assembly on 9 April 2005, the NNP's Federal Council voted by 88 to 2 to disband. It also settled its outstanding debt of R5.2 million to the Absa Group Limited, in preparation for dissolution.
With effect from 5 August 2005, all NNP members of parliament became members of the ANC, in accordance with the system of crossing the floor in South Africa, which allowed politicians, elected on one party ticket, to defect to other parties or becoming independents. This system was repealed in 2009.