National Party (South Africa) - Decline

Decline

Beginning in the early 1980s, under the leadership of State President P.W. Botha, the National Party began to reform its policies. Botha legalised interracial marriages and multiracial political parties and relaxed the Group Areas Act. Botha also granted a measure of political representation to Coloureds and Indians by creating separate parliamentary chambers in which they had control of their "own affairs." Black South Africans were not included, however, and over national affairs he ensured that the white chamber of parliament retained the last word in all matters: the representatives of the white chamber had a compulsory block-vote in the electoral college to choose the State President, who had the say over which of the three chambers, or which combination of them, should consider any piece of legislation. On the central issue of granting meaningful political rights to black South Africans, Botha and the National Party refused to budge, most black political organizations remaining banned, and prominent black dissidents, including Nelson Mandela, remaining imprisoned.

In the midst of rising political instability, growing economic problems and diplomatic isolation, Botha resigned as National Party leader, and subsequently as State President, in 1989. He was replaced by F.W. de Klerk. Although a conservative, De Klerk realised the impracticality of maintaining apartheid forever, and soon after taking power, he decided that it would be better to negotiate while there was still time to reach a compromise, than to hold out until forced to negotiate on less favourable terms later. He persuaded the National Party to enter into negotiations with representatives of the black community. Late in 1989, the National Party won the most bitterly contested election in decades, pledging to negotiate an end to the apartheid system that it had established. On 2 February 1990, the African National Congress was legalised, and Nelson Mandela was released after twenty-seven years of imprisonment. A referendum in 1992 gave De Klerk plenipotentiary powers to negotiate with Mandela. Following the negotiations, a new interim constitution was drawn up, and multiracial elections were held in 1994. These elections were won by the African National Congress. The National Party remained in government, however, as a coalition partner to the ANC in the Government of National Unity until 30 June 1996, when it withdrew to become the Official Opposition.

In 1997, the National Party renamed itself the New National Party in order to distance itself from its past. The party merged with the Democratic Party (DP) to form the Democratic Alliance (DA) in 2000 but by 2001 the party had broken away from the Democratic Alliance. The Democratic Alliance retained its position of Official Opposition while the NNP started to disintegrate as a party. It lasted less than a decade before its federal council voted to dissolve the party on 9 April 2005, following a decision the previous year to merge with the ANC.