Opinion From South Africa’s Longest Serving MP

Excerpt from Dr Corné Mulder’s speech last week at a business brunch in Sandton:

I serve as the FF Plus’s Chief Whip in Parliament. At the moment, I am the longest serving Member of Parliament. It is terrible; I have been there for many, many years.

Some of you may remember that there was once a man named PW Botha. When I came to Parliament, he was still president and I witnessed him stepping down. I saw FW de Klerk take over, and then the reins were handed to Nelson Mandela in 1994, and then to Thabo Mbeki, then Kgalema Motlanthe, then Jacob Zuma and now they are in the hands of Cyril Ramaphosa.

I am planning to remain here until Cyril is also gone and the ANC has been replaced by a multiparty coalition government, which will change this country for the better.

It will not be easy. At the moment, all the talks mainly focus on the issue of coalitions.

My main concern is that I truly think we are underestimating the ANC. If we do not approach this the right way, we will not be able to defeat the ANC.

I do not think that they have any intention of giving up the power over South Africa, not at all.

I do not think the ANC is a democratic institution. I do not think they believe in democracy. We saw them in action in the metros where the ANC was defeated and coalitions were formed.

I can assure you that they did every lawful, and almost unlawful, thing to try and destabilise those coalition governments. And if we think that removing the ANC from government next year will go smoothly, we are in for a rude awakening.

I really do think we are underestimating the ANC.

What the challenge actually entails

The fundamental question is this: Are we really serious about ousting the ANC from government? Yes or no?

Because if we are serious, we need to understand what the challenge actually entails. It will not happen all by itself; it will not be easy; it will not be a matter of “Oh well, let’s wait and see how things unfold, let’s go to the polls next year and let’s see what happens if we all vote”.

I have been involved in the coalition project for quite some time now because I have believed in coalitions for many, many years of my political career. Our current electoral system is a simple system of proportional representation. It is meant to result in coalitions, because no single party is supposed to get more than 50% of all the votes in a proportional system. It is abnormal.

If one considers international examples, you would see that in Germany, for example, one party may end up with 34% of the votes, and then that party has won the elections; it is the biggest and strongest party and they form the government. We have had an abnormal government since 1994 where one single party constantly got more than 50% of the votes. Fortunately, it will now come to an end. I believe the ANC could get less than 50% of the votes, and that will afford us the opportunity to form a coalition government.

The first point that needs to be understood is that coalitions can only be formed after the elections. You cannot form a coalition before the elections seeing as you do not know what the results will be. You first need to launch a campaign and see what the results are and whether it will be possible to form a coalition government.

The ANC has missed its chance

After 30 years, it is high time to oust the ANC from power; to totally remove it from government. It has had its chance. It had the best chance in the world to make a success of this country, but it made a mess of it.

The ANC must go, it its entirety; it must not be part of government at all. If we are not able to achieve that, I am very concerned. I do not think we can afford another five years of ANC mismanagement and everything that comes with that.

So, if we want this to work, we are talking about a regime chance in ten months from now. Ten months.

That is not a lot of time. And if we do not go about this the right way, we will not succeed; we will frustrate our voters, and we will keep the country caught in this downward spiral for another five years.

So, what must we do? Re-arranging the current 35% of voters and those who already voted for opposition parties will not help. It is of no use – it will be a waste of time.

It is senseless to try and form a coalition built solely around political parties. It will not work. It will come to naught if one party gets 2% more and another gets 1% less. We will achieve nothing in that way.
The success of a regime change starts with civil society. Not with political parties. And if we are unable to involve the whole of civil society, we will not succeed in 2024.

Before the process of 1994, there was an organisation called the United Democratic Front (UDF). It was a comprehensive movement involving the whole of civil society: churches, trade unions, academics, the business community, individuals, name them. Everyone got involved to bring about a regime change and overthrow the former National Party.

And unless we do that, we will not succeed. Believe me, we will not succeed.

Get involved

The time has come for leaders and individuals in all sectors of society, across the board in South Africa, to stand up and say, “I will do it; I will get involved. We have crossed the Rubicon; we believe we need a regime change in 2024.”

We must now start the process of establishing a new UDF, an all-encompassing process within civil society. We must create a kind of tsunami effect in South Africa where everyone gets involved.

If people are not registered, they cannot vote, and if they do not vote, they mean nothing. They may write an open letter in the media, but that is irrelevant. You must vote, but before you can do that, you must register.

This all-encompassing movement must ignite zeal among South Africans to go and register. Every individual must take up their responsibility. Are you registered, are your family members registered, are your friends registered? That is step one; and if you cannot do that, you cannot vote. If we can get the people out there to register, we can win and bring about a regime change.

There are four groups on which we must focus

We must reach the young people; those between 18 and 35 who do not want to be part of the system, who are not registered, who do not want to participate in politics.

The second group is older people, those my age, who have also opted not to be part of the system, they are mainly Afrikaans speakers, and many of them say, “It will not make any difference.” We must draw them back into the system.

Disillusioned supporters

The third group is the approximately one-third of ANC supporters out there who have become disillusioned with their own party. We must reach them and persuade them and get them to support a new beginning.

But you must go about it the right way. These voters will not necessarily join any of the current political parties. But they might be willing to make use of other means or forms.

The last group is expats, people living abroad, who will vote and support this kind of approach.

So, this is what I think needs to happen:

We must get this all-encompassing movement going. It must have a name; an emblem, a logo, and everyone must get involved.

This all-encompassing movement must subscribe to certain basic principles, say about five to ten basic principles; those things that define international best practices and successful countries; principles like a free market, guaranteeing property rights, non-racialism, the rule of law, etc. Go and make that list.
And then political parties that identify with those ideals can apply to this “UDF”, indicating that they want to join.

What will happen then? Voters and the public will know which parties are willing to support it. And then those parties will run their own campaigns, and on their campaign posters will appear a small logo of this broader entity. So that the public can know: I can still vote for my preferred party, but I know my party will form part of a comprehensive coalition after the elections, which will govern the country according to those principles, and we can turn South Africa around together.

If we do not go about it in this way, and if we are not serious about it, we are merely fooling the public and wasting our time. The ANC will emerge victorious once again, because they will simply carry on as always.

The people need hope, they need a new beginning, and they need to be persuaded that this country can indeed be the best country in Africa, if not the world.

We have so much potential, it is all there. But the people have lost hope; they do not believe that it can be done.

It can be done, though. Political parties just need to get over themselves; political leaders need to realise that it is not all about them, but about the people out there.

It can be done. Help us.