SOUTH AFRICA: The National Party ruled for years over an austere racist state. Now led by a man derisively known as 'short pants', the NNP has had its bottom smacked, writes Declan Walsh
For decades the National Party ruled South Africa, a rubber whip in one hand and a bible in the other. Austere architects built a notorious racist state, fought dirty wars against black insurgents and secretly built the atomic bomb.
But as the final results in South Africa's third democratic election streamed in last night, the once-proud party was stumbling towards decimation under a leader derisively known as "short pants".
With 95 per cent of votes counted, the New National Party the party's post-apartheid reincarnation had a puny 1.7 per cent support, down from 20 per cent in 1994 and 7 per cent in 1999.
In contrast the ANC, whose former leader Nelson Mandela negotiated the end of apartheid with the National Party in 1994, surged towards its most decisive victory.
The latest tally put the ANC vote at 69 per cent, confirming its monopoly on power and leaving the white-led Democratic Alliance trailing a distant second with 13 per cent of votes.
Yesterday the South African press reported the NNP's dramatic demise with undisguised glee. Noting the result came on the anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic, This Day declared that "this was the death of the party of apartheid".
The article was headlined "Sins of the fathers visited on NNP" - a reference to the book of Exodus, and to the way apartheid ideologues used the Old Testament to justify white supremacism. Until the 1990s, the Dutch Reform Church was commonly known as "the National Party at prayer".
On Thursday the visibly crestfallen NNP leader, Marthinus van Schalkwyk, held a press conference in Cape Town as the bad news streamed in. "The NNP and I remain absolutely committed to the approach we have taken," he said. But his supporters, who had deserted him in droves, seem to think that was a bad idea.
Mr van Schalkwyk, a one-time university professor and apartheid-era informer, commands little of the fear-tinged respect afforded to National Party giants such as Hendrik Verwoerd, PW Botha and FW de Klerk. Instead he is commonly known as "kortbroek", or "short pants" in the Afrikaans language - a dig at both his chubby, boyish looks and perceived lack of gravitas.
In recent years he tried to fashion the NNP as the party that ended apartheid under De Klerk. But the burden of history, it seems - combined with some crippling political miscalculations - was too heavy.
After coming to power in 1948 the National Party set about building a racist state unparalleled anywhere in the world. "Whites only" signs were erected in buses, trains and public parks; blacks, coloureds and Indians were corralled into racial ghettoes.
The ideologues fought hard to maintain their warped privileges - sending troops into Angola to fend off the threat of black "communists", secretly developing an atomic bomb and assassinating ANC exiles abroad through the feared Bureau of State Security.
Police brutality and torture became commonplace. Former police officers testified to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission how they slowly suffocated dissidents with rubber tubing, while chemical weapons experts explained how they developed drugs to sterilise black women and infect Nelson Mandela with meningitis.
Ironically, today the ANC is one of the New National Party's few remaining friends. The two parties have jointly ruled Western Cape province in an unlikely coalition that ultimately cost Mr van Schalkwyk dearly.
Although the ANC alliance ensured the NNP a fingerhold on power - Mr van Schalkwyk was appointed premier of Western Cape - it was viewed as an unforgivable betrayal by his core supporters. Some whites deserted the NNP for the extreme right-wing Freedom Front Plus party, while mixed-raced "coloureds" migrated to the white-led Democratic Alliance.
Many coloureds feel marginalised by the black-led government. "We were too black under apartheid and now we are too white for the ANC," is a common refrain in the townships of the Cape Flats.
The ANC alliance was a tactical mistake, said analyst Richard Calland: "They chose to go into oblivion with a foot in the grave rather than in opposition. Either way they were dead." But it is still too early to write the NNP obituary - its slim vote may ensure a second coalition with the ANC in Western Cape, albeit as a greatly diminished partner.