South African National Party
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New National Party
Nuwe Nasionale Party |
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| Leader | Marthinus van Schalkwyk |
| Founded | 1997 |
| Dissolved | 2005 |
| Preceded by | National Party |
| Merged into | African National Congress |
| Ideology |
Conservatism, Christian democracy |
| Political position | Right-wing |
The New National Party (NNP) was a South African political party formed in 1997 as the successor to the National Party, which ruled the country from 1948 to 1994. The name change was an attempt to distance itself from its apartheid past, and reinvent itself as a moderate, mainstream conservative and non-racist federal party. The attempt was largely unsuccessful, and in 2005 the New National Party voted to disband itself.
The NP entered the democratic era led by 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. He was succeeded by Marthinus van Schalkwyk until the eventual disbanding and merger of the party with the African National Congress (ANC). Van Schalkwyk renamed the party towards the end of 1997. In February 1996, the party had announced that it would become a nonracial, Christian-Democratic political organization, and Van Schalkwyk sough to build on this in his efforts to rebrand the NNP as a nonracial, value driven party.
But 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 (DP), 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 province, where it was the party of government, despite being pushed into second place there by the ANC. The party faced comparatively smaller losses in the province in large part due to the retention of most of its coloured support, but it also fared better with white voters than in most other provinces. 50% of its voter base now came from this one province, and despite retaining representation in all nine provincial legislatures, it was seemingly becoming a regional political force.
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