The Democratic Party (DP) was the name of the South African political party now called the Democratic Alliance. Although the Democratic Party name dates from 1989, the party existed under other labels throughout the apartheid years, when it was the Parliamentary opposition to the ruling National Party's policies.

Background

The Progressive Federal Party had formed the main parliamentary opposition to the Apartheid regime in the whites-only House of Assembly since 1977. But the party was ousted as the official opposition in the 1987 election and pushed into third place behind the far-right

Conservative Party The Conservative Party is a name used by many political parties around the world. These political parties are generally right-wing though their exact ideologies can range from center-right to far-right. Political parties called The Conservative P ...

, which opposed even the limited reforms the NP had recently implemented. This led to great disillusionment amongst South Africa's white liberal community, and some questioned the merit of continuing to serve in the apartheid parliament. By 1989, they had regrouped, however, and aimed to strengthen the white parliamentary resistance to apartheid; the Progressive Federal Party merged with two smaller reform-minded parties, the Independent Party and the National Democratic Movement (NDM), to become the Democratic Party. The new party had three co-leaders from each of the parties that had entered the merger:

Zach de Beer Zacharias Johannes "Zach" de Beer (born Cape Town, South Africa, 11 October 1928 – 27 May 1999) was a liberal Afrikaner South African politician and businessman. He was the last leader of the liberal Progressive Federal Party and then the co-l ...

, Denis Worrall and

Wynand Malan Wynand Malan (born 25 May 1943) is a liberal Afrikaner South African politician. A lawyer, Malan entered politics in the 1977 South African election when he was elected to the South Africa's all white parliament as the National Party MP for ...

. De Beer, from the dominant PFP-faction, eventually became the sole leader, however.

History

The DP showed its political strength by winning a local by-election in the mostly Afrikaner Linden suburb in Johannesburg, described as a "shock upset" that showed the NP that voters were ready for change. It went on to win 34 seats in the

1989 election The following elections occurred in the year 1989. Africa * 1989 Beninese parliamentary election * 1989 Botswana general election * 1989 Equatorial Guinean presidential election * 1989 People's Republic of the Congo parliamentary election * 198 ...

, up from 20 before the vote. In 1990, the NP shifted its race policies towards the centre. President FW de Klerk released Nelson Mandela and announced the unbanning of struggle organisations such as the African National Congress, while embracing liberal democracy and opening up its membership to all races. This shift narrowed the political space available to the DP, and the party saw itself further marginalized during the

Codesa The apartheid system in South Africa was ended through a series of bilateral and multi-party negotiations between 1990 and 1993. The negotiations culminated in the passage of a new interim Constitution in 1993, a precursor to the Constitution ...

negotiations which were dominated by the ANC and NP. In the 1994 election, the party won a disappointing 7 seats in the democratic parliament.

Post-1994

Following the 1994 election, Tony Leon became the party's sole leader. Under Leon's leadership, the DP would become the most active and influential opposition party in the National Assembly, despite its small size. A mid-term review in 1997 found that the party's seven members of parliament had asked 50% as many parliamentary questions as the members of the National Party, despite being more than ten times smaller. In 1998, political columnist Howard Barrell wrote that "Seven DP MPs make their National Party counterparts look like 80 feather dusters". The DP won its first local by-election in a traditional NP constituency in March 1997, and this was followed by several others.

1998 to 2000

By 1998, the party was growing its support base significantly, and after the 1999 election, the DP, under the leadership of Leon, became Official Opposition to the ANC-led government, winning 38 seats. In the Western Cape province, it achieved kingmaker status and became the junior partner in a governing coalition with the renamed New National Party (NNP). This electoral success came at a price, however. The party's new supporters largely came from the National Party and consisted overwhelmingly of ethnic minorities, mainly whites. The DP had contested the 1999 election with a highly negative campaign under the controversial slogan "Fight Back", and many, such as ANC President Thabo Mbeki, were of the view that it was "the transformation of the DP into a right wing political party" that allowed it to capture these voters. Leon and other party leaders dismissed this, however, maintaining that the new supporters would not lead the DP to change its principles. Instead, he said the new recruits would have to ascribe to the liberal-democratic values to which the DP had historically adhered.Institutions, Ethnicity, and Political Mobilization in South Africa, page 133

Formation of the Democratic Alliance

To unify national opposition against the ANC government, the DP and the NNP began planning a merger of the two parties. Accordingly, they formed the Democratic Alliance (DA) in June 2000. The merger agreement was short-lived, with the NNP leaving the alliance in 2001, but the DA closed ranks and retained the new creation, establishing it at all levels of government from 2003 onwards.

Election results

References

External links

Democratic Alliance website
{{Political history of South Africa , state=expanded Political parties established in 1989 Political parties disestablished in 2000 South Africa 1989 Defunct political parties in South Africa Liberal parties in South Africa Democratic Alliance (South Africa)