AC Vol 43 No 13
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www.africa-confidential.com 28 June 2002 Vol 43 No 13 AFRICA CONFIDENTIAL NIGERIA 3 SOUTH AFRICA Banker versus banker The Central Bank is trying to End of an Alliance impose order on Nigeria’s 100 Squabbles and scandals are now destroying the only opposition banks: many make big profits from which really mattered illicit foreign exchange deals. One The most serious opposition group, the Democratic Alliance (DA), has been gravely wounded by solution would be a single exchange rate, although that could corruption allegations and political misjudgement. The governing African National Congress is sticking put several banks out of business. the knife in deeper with a new law allowing elected representatives to defect to other parties without losing their seats. The ANC stresses that such a law operates in most European parliaments but its clear aim is to give it control of all nine provinces and all main provincial and city councils. FRANCOPHONE WEST In the two opposition-controlled provinces, Western Cape and kwaZulu-Natal, enough opposition AFRICA 4 representatives want to cross the floor to give the ANC majority control. The ANC’s advantage is mainly due to opposition incompetence; the biggest personal loser is the DA’s Tony Leon (45), whose energetic The voters’ friend and pragmatic leadership once rattled the government. After a decade of ‘democratising’ The national parliament passed the Floor-Crossing Legislation on 20 June but opposition parties argue some Francophone countries are that it violates voters’ rights and want the courts to stop it. The case, heard by the Cape High Court on starting to see real change brought about through the ballot box. 24 June, will probably be referred to the Constitutional Court and the bill will most likely go through. Others are still struggling to Pressure is mounting for a wider review of electoral law: a cross-party lobby wants to move away from convince their veteran rulers of the proportional representation to a mixture of candidates’ lists and single-member constituencies. benefits of retirement and, while France urges reform, President Crossing the floor Chirac’s networks are not necessarily helping. In the Western Cape, New National Party (NNP) leader Marthinus van Schalkwyk and his group have defected from the DA coalition (AC Vol 42 No 22) and the ANC will gain control of the provincial government if and when the Floor-Crossing Legislation is finally passed. If it applies nationwide, four ERITREA 6 potential defectors in the kwaZulu-Natal legislature would give the ANC 41 of the province’s 80 seats. ANC supporters speak of replacing the Inkatha Freedom Party Premier, Lionel Mtshali, with their own Disarmed but not S’bu Ndebele. Inkatha naturally claims that the Floor-Crossing bill applies only in Western Cape. More demobbed darkly, Inkatha leader Mangosuthu Buthelezi warns that the ANC risks re-igniting the struggle that Donors have lost patience with bad killed thousands of people in kwaZulu-Natal in the early 1990s and nearly scuppered the 1994 elections. governance, harsh treatment of The legislation coincides with a crisis in the DA over its links to Jürgen Harksen, a businessman political prisoners and clampdowns wanted in Germany on multi-million dollar fraud charges. In March, Harksen claimed that he had paid on the press. Development aid the DA Mayor of Cape Town, Gerald Morkel, 785,000 rand (US$78,000) for political protection and has all but dried up and President influence. Harksen also implicated Leon Markowitz, a former Western Cape Finance Commissioner Issayas has asked conscripts to stay on an extra two years to work and DA fundraiser. for the government. Morkel and Markowitz denied Harksen’s claims but admit to an ‘inappropriate relationship’ with him. A government commission in Cape Town is inspecting documents seized from Harksen, including receipts of Morkel’s legal accounts, letters promising donations to the DA and telephone records. They MOZAMBIQUE 7 appear to bear out Harksen’s claim that he contributed to Morkel’s rent, bankrolled his litigation and made a sizeable party political donation. Harksen also alleges that Morkel was linked to Vito Palazzolo, a Seconds out convicted money launderer and alleged Mafia boss (AC Vol 40 No 3). Frelimo has picked veteran Morkel was investigated by a crack police intelligence unit, the Scorpions. To preserve their secrets, Armando Guebuza as its Morkel and other DA officials bought expensive anti-bugging equipment and met in the basement of the presidential candidate in 2004, despite opposition from President city council in what they called ‘the bubble’, an area meant to be secure from electronic surveillance. Chissano. ‘Guebas’ will hope to They sat on aluminium beach chairs, which they thought would block electronic signals. The chairs keep the lid on scandals and to turned out to be useless: the Scorpions produced clear recordings and transcripts. appease donors by limiting The DA denies the allegations and Morkel insists that each document has an innocent explanation. The corruption. DA has promised a forensic audit of its accounts but, politically, the sleaze may stick and will anyway disrupt its claim to offer an alternative to ANC sleaze. Morkel is still Cape Town Mayor, though POINTERS 8 suspended from official duties. Founded in July 2000, the DA brought together the Democratic Party (mainly white, economically Ghana, Zimbabwe, conservative) and the NNP (successor to the former apartheid National Party and the official opposition World Bank/DRC & in 1994-99). The alliance had no chance of unseating the ANC but provided the serious parliamentary opposition missing since Inkatha locked itself into a coalition with the ANC. Senegal The ANC’s chief blunder was opposing the dispensing of anti-retroviral and other anti-HIV/AIDS 28 June 2002 Africa Confidential Vol 43 No 13 which governed the province. What’s left of the opposition Old-style DP liberals at first opposed the July 2000 DP-NNP merger but veteran liberal Colin Eglin and voice of conscience Helen Suzman ● The Pan-Africanist Congress: Since the African National Congress endorsed it. Leon became leader, with NNP boss Van Schalkwyk as won power, the PAC has lacked a role or clear political identity. Its five deputy. The Alliance managed to get Cape Town’s very capable ANC members of parliament and one representative in the Northern Province Mayor, Nomaindia Mfeketo, replaced by NNP populist Peter Marais. assembly have proved uninspiring. In exile, the ANC proved more adept The NNP became a ‘coloured’ (mixed race) party with its main at playing both its Western hosts and communist donors; in the early support base in the Western Cape. Its coloured politicians gained 1990s, the PAC’s insistence on armed struggle alienated many. Its dour confidence. Marais and Morkel, both keen entrepreneurs and popular leader, Reverend Stanley Mogoba, holds on at the expense of the more in working-class neighbourhoods, demanded rank and power. The old energetic Patricia de Lille, a former trades unionist. Secretary General NP had run patron-client politics for its former white Afrikaner Thami Plaatjie focuses on poor people’s grievances, especially on land constituency; Marais and Morkel skillfully ran similar operations for for housing, but that doesn’t translate into sustained support. their own community. This was very different from the closed ● Azanian People’s Organisation: Proclaiming ‘black consciousness’, decision-making of Leon, Selfe and Coetzee. NNP leaders, especially Azapo was never a mass organisation but enjoyed some sympathy among Van Schalkwyk and Marais, disliked that style and the influence of the black intellectuals. It boycotted the constitutional negotiations and the young Coetzee. first democratic elections. In the June 1999 poll its mere 100,000 votes won it one seat, for its national Chairperson Mosebudi Mangeni. The Inkatha and friends ANC has slowly siphoned off its brightest leaders: Itumeleng Mosala DP MPs began to criticise Leon’s leadership style and DA politics. DP (deputy Education Minister), Mojunki Gumbi (Legal Advisor to strategists met potential allies behind NNP leaders’ backs. Selfe President Thabo Mbeki). It recently opened membership to whites and talked to Mario Ambrosini, one of Buthelezi’s controversial advisors, is no threat to the ANC. seeking Inkatha support to get on to parliament’s key Security and ● United Democratic Front: Formed by disgruntled politicians from the Intelligence Committee, so far blocked by the ANC. In return, the DA ANC under Bantu Holomisa and the New National Party under Roelf offered to drop its objections to Inkatha’s support for unelected Meyer, it has failed in its quest to form a national party that breaks with traditional leaders in local municipalities. race. Meyer retired from politics soon after the UDF was formed in 1999. Ambrosini, an Italian, is a private consultant to Buthelezi in his Holomisa’s wing now looks no more than a Xhosa-speaking faction from capacity as Home Affairs Minister. Ambrosini is wary of the ANC, the rural Eastern Cape, the worst governed ANC province. Another with which Inkatha is allied at national level, giving the IFP two seats Xhosa, ex-President Nelson Mandela, unsuccessfully wooed Holomisa in the national cabinet and a share of power in kwaZulu-Natal. but he has flirted with the PAC. The DA was riding high; Leon, not Van Schalkwyk, reaped the ● Inkatha Freedom Party: The Zulu former ‘cultural movement’ lost resulting popularity. The party embarrassed President Thabo Mbeki much significance when it allied with the ANC nationally and in its by leaking his private correspondence with Leon (penned by DP native kwaZulu-Natal. Eight years ago, the IFP was a real force, not least researchers) on the government’s flawed HIV/AIDS policy. Western as one side of the political violence in Johannesburg and kwaZulu. Now Cape was the only provincial government dispensing anti-retrovirals it is preoccupied by issues of traditional leadership and the Zulu monarchy.