New S. African Multiracial Party Planned

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa — At 49, Roelf Meyer has already made his mark on history.

The boyish-faced lawyer was the former apartheid regime’s chief negotiator in the tortuous transition from white rule to multi-party democracy in 1994 and was co-architect of the new constitution. As secretary-general of the National Party, which ruled South Africa for 46 years, he was the potential successor to Frederik W. de Klerk, the party leader and former president.

But Meyer quit the National Party in humiliation last month after De Klerk fired him from a task force that had recommended the white-led party radically reform its conservative politics to reach out to black voters; it even suggested that the party might disband.

De Klerk abolished the task force instead.

Now Meyer has a defiant new agenda. He and other political dissidents announced this week that they intend to form a new multiracial party by year’s end to challenge President Nelson Mandela’s ruling African National Congress in the 1999 national elections and beyond.

“We are engaged in nothing less than a restructuring of the political scene,” Meyer told a group of wealthy business leaders at a country club here during the second in a planned series of meetings with potential supporters across the country. “The aim is not to create another opposition party. The ultimate objective is to become the governing party of South Africa.”

Meyer’s defection from the National Party and his plans for a breakaway party have roiled the political landscape.

Far less clear is whether Meyer and his allies--including Bantu Holomisa, a populist black leader who was expelled from the ANC for insubordination last year--can find a sizable following in a political culture still largely defined by race and ethnicity.

Mandela will not seek reelection in 1999, but recent polls show that the ANC still has the backing of almost two-thirds of the electorate, including overwhelming support from the country’s black majority.

The same polls show a sharp drop in support for the National Party, which won 20% of the vote in 1994, and most other opposition groups.

The “Nats” still govern the Western Cape, one of the nine provinces, but their appeal remains limited to minority Afrikaans-speaking whites and mixed-race voters.

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Analysts say Meyer’s moderate politics may find fertile ground among voters disillusioned not only with the feeble opposition parties on the right but with the leftist ANC’s failure to deliver on its preelection pledges to build homes, create jobs and battle rising crime.

“I think conditions in the country absolutely demand a realignment,” said Sipho Maseko, a political scientist at the University of the Western Cape. “Very soon, in the next two elections, apartheid will no longer be blamed for why communities don’t have clean water or tarred roads.”

Lawrence Schlemmer, a political analyst and pollster, agreed.

“I think there’s a significant niche of enlightened conservatism, a reform niche, that can be exploited,” he said. “A bridge party between left and right would gain significant competitive advantage.”

Meyer had to quit Parliament under a constitutional provision that bars members from changing parties.

So far, no other member has joined him. But a dozen or so provincial and local National Party leaders have followed him into the New Movement Process, his party-building operation.

“I think a major realignment will come after 1999,” said Paulo Andradi, who quit as head of the National Party’s Youth League in Gauteng province, which includes Johannesburg. “But this is the first step. From the initial response, we think there’s a groundswell behind us. We could be the official opposition after 1999.”

Harald Packendorf, a political analyst who has worked as a consultant to the National Party, said the scenario is plausible.

“The opposition political scene has been blown open,” he said. “The problem is we’re talking about rearranging the third that didn’t vote for the ANC. But that might be important before we can move on. . . . If they can create a credible political home [for disaffected voters in 1999], then they can really play a role in future elections.”

For his part, Meyer only laughed when a well-dressed woman at the country club tartly asked if he was merely “rearranging the deck chairs” on the opposition’s sinking ship.

“There’s a yearning all around to create something new and different,” he replied. “If we can’t build something that has the possibility of forming an alternative government someday, then we’re just wasting our time.”