DA’s ‘one SA for all’ built on shaky ground
IT’S interesting that the new DA is now inviting gullible South Africans to help them build their own entirely new South Africa.
The foundation for the new South Africa was laid at the groundbreaking Codesa talks where all political parties agreed to help build it. One of the agreements was that the death penalty should be abolished.
The Big Three at the time were the ANC, the IFP and the NP. Of these the latter two were soon showing that their participation in the all important talks was done in bad faith. Both decided to use their support for the death penalty to woo South Africans prepared to believe their lies. During the first election in 1994, NP posters screamed: “Hang the murderers! Hang the rapists!”, mostly in Afrikaans.
The IFP had to be dragged along into the new order. They would not even take part in the election, but bolted at the eleventh hour, so much so that their insertion on the ballot paper had to be done after these had been printed already.
Even today, on the eve of our sixth election, they still repeat their hackneyed support for the death penalty, hoping that the electorate will fall for it.
The callous DP, mushrooming into the current DA, opted for a “free or conscience vote” on this sensitive issue. Even today they are quiet about their policy on the death penalty, if ever they had one.
Their “kortbroek” leader was quickly silenced when he advocated a referendum for the death penalty. Furthermore, of the little 1% Mickey Mouse parties at the time, the DA was the most dishonest, by opting to go it alone when invited to be part of Madiba’s Government of National Unity (GNU). The NP under De Klerk saw the necessity for building a united South Africa after our bloody colonial and apartheid history.
Mbeki and De Klerk became our two deputy presidents and the NP was offered six ministerial posts. Some of their ministers were the late Pik Botha, Roelf Meyer, Leon Wessels and Dawie de Villiers. After a devastating hammering at the 1999 polls, this dreadful party disintegrated and disappeared.
The world was preparing for a bloody civil war after Chris Hani’s assassination on April 10, 1993. Madiba’s intervention, pleading with angry youths not to revert to violence, saved our country. One must ask the question how did only one tiny party rise to challenge the existing political order, already giving their supporters false hope by calling some of their big-mouths “shadow ministers”, their party “a government-in-waiting”! Who is funding them? Having reached their ceiling, they could up to now only muster 20% of the vote. Did they hope to achieve their unattainable goal by now? Polls show just three parties will secure 90% of the vote, meaning the other 45 will have to fight for the crumbs.
The DA’s little South Africa will never rise higher than the sand it is built on.
KOERT MEYER | Welgelegen