This resource is hosted by the Nelson Mandela Foundation, but was compiled and authored by Padraig O’Malley. It is the product of almost two decades of research and includes analyses, chronologies, historical documents, and interviews from the apartheid and post-apartheid eras.
10 Aug 1993: De Klerk, Willem
Click here for more information on the Interviewee
Click here for Overview of the year
POM. Maybe I'll start with a quote which came from The Star last December. It says: - "The government is discredited and divided, the military may mutiny, Buthelezi wants secession and APLA threatens a race war. De Klerk fiddles while South Africa burns."
. In a large number of interviews that I've done since coming here and going through all the various press services to which I subscribe a recurring theme has been the fragmentation of the National Party, the fact that today only one out of four voters who voted for them in 1989 would vote for them today and that fragmentation is also reflected within the Cabinet where there are the more soft liners like Meyer and de Villiers and hard liners like Delport and Hernus Kriel and Kobie Coetsee, where does the government on the one hand and the National Party on the other find themselves at this stage?
WDK. OK I'll give you a few answers on that, not necessarily in sequence of importance. I would say the first answer will be that the political opinion polls, that's my point of view and I know it's also a point of view of scientists within that field, is really a very dangerous thing because it all depends on the moment of the poll, the political climate may turn and make a roundabout turn within a week's time and if the polls would be let's say as from today, in two week's time the whole scene can change. So there's not, I think, a high rate of credibility in political polls. That was also demonstrated in Britain and in Europe and in South Africa in the past. So I'm not that worried about political opinion polls, that's my first answer.
. My second answer is, yes, I think the basic problem is that the whole transition period caught up with the government and the National Party. There was too much delay. They have really lost their power. I would say that de Klerk and the National Party and the government, they have de jure power but not de facto power any more. That's my second answer, I'm answering it from a broad perspective.
. So they have lost power, yes, and the ANC insist time and again to be a partner in the decision making process. The problem is that the interim government and the Transitional Executive Committee and that kind of thing is not in place already and so they have lost really the power to rule. OK, it's also the strategy of de Klerk and company to place more focus on the negotiation process and the success of the negotiation process than on the ruling aspect of government. They don't want to do anything that will be in any way derailing the negotiation process and therefore they were very soft in handling certain issues. So that's another answer.
. What's happening in the Nationalist Party I think there is some truth in this that there was a reaction, especially in the ranks of the MPs, the MPs, and on grassroots level, there was the fear that the National Party is busy to sell the National Party, the Afrikaners and the people who were the power base of the National Party to the ANC and that the National Party is too soft on the ANC. There was another perception that the National Party is busy to work Buthelezi out of the system. That's the second thing that brought this kind of electricity within the National Party's ranks. The third thing is that one must remember that especially MPs are very worried about their future jobs and it's not going to be easy to be on this list. There will be more or less a list of 100 people and it must include Coloureds and blacks and Indians.
POM. Coloureds and Blacks up near the top?
WDK. Yes, near the top not down here. So there's a lot of MPs that are a little bit opportunistic and say, "Well we've got a better chance in Inkatha because Inkatha must also deliver for its white power base and so there must be a few white persons also on top of the list of Inkatha." So that's another factor. But basically I think it's a feeling of insecurity and I'm very sure that when the Nationalist Party deliver, when the package deal, absolutely the whole contract is finished at Kempton Park and the electioneering begins that propaganda, and to a certain extent it's the truth (I will say something about that in a moment) that the propaganda will be to the people, "You see, we were holding a low profile but here's the result of the negotiations and now you can test this result and this result is in favour of minorities in South Africa and this result is still more or less in line with the referendum documents, the referendum manifesto."
POM. I want to go back to June of last year when CODESA collapsed. If you look at that period between then and now, what concessions have the government made and what concessions have the ANC made that have brought the process to the point where it is today?
WDK. I would say that there was, from the ANC's point of view, concessions on the economic policy, a tendency to uphold more specifically the free market principles in the economy. That was one concession. The second concession on the part of the ANC was that the whole concept of partnership, federalism, regionalism, call it what you like, that they promoted within their own ranks and they have made a compromise on that in the negotiations situation, so that was a compromise from the ANC's point of view.
. And the government compromised that they dropped the whole concept of forced coalitions. They dropped the whole concept that the final constitution must be drawn up by the negotiating forum and not by a Constituent Assembly, the government said, "OK have it your way" in that. So there were a lot of concessions made by the government too.
POM. When you look at the draft of the constitutional proposals that were put on the table, just in your own view, to what extent do you think they went in terms of meeting the government's goals, on a scale of one to ten?
WDK. I would say, I don't want to say this hard, but I think the government, the National Party, will say that in the election campaign that the government and the National Party gained more for their departure points and their philosophy regarding the transitional phase than the ANC. I would say the ANC compromised to a large extent more than the government compromised on the basic issues.
POM. The basic issue being regionalism, federalism?
WDK. Regionalism, the whole concept of coalition for the next five years, the concept that the Constituent Assembly will be bound to the principles laid down in the transitional constitution for the final constitution.
POM. OK, now will those fundamental principles include this very important thing, that the powers of the regions will be set outside of the Constituent Assembly?
WDK. Yes.
POM. And that they can't be modified by a Constituent Assembly?
WDK. They can't be modified. Yes, I would say that that's still in negotiation now but my information is, and perhaps it's wishful thinking, that I think that the ANC accepted the fact that they must accommodate the minorities of Buthelezi and the whole COSAG group, they must accommodate them and I am sure that regional powers will be extended. According to plan A of the ANC the regions must have a minimum of power. According to the plan A of the National Party it must be a classical federal model. I would say we're going to settle in the sphere of the classical federation model but not exactly a classical federation model. So there will be a balance between the powers of the central state and the powers of the regions but I think that even Buthelezi, I don't think Mangope, but I think Buthelezi and this Afrikaner Volksunie, not the CP, will agree on the regional arrangements that will become part of the contract.
POM. They asked yesterday that the people in local areas should be consulted about where the boundaries of the regions should lie.
WDK. Yes I saw that in this morning's paper. I haven't read this morning's paper.
POM. This picks up the question that if all this work is going to be done by the 30th August so it can go forward into the legislative process in September for there to be an election next April ...
WDK. I can't see that happening.
POM. Is it possible?
WDK. Perhaps the specific borders of the regions, but they will say, "OK let's agree on the power of the regions and the procedures and the decision making and the relationship between regions and central government and all that nitty gritty but the boundaries let's leave that open for somewhere January or February, and that they will decide in principle the boundaries will be more or less this and this and this, but the detail of that will be sorted out later.
POM. Do you think as borders are demarcated and rival claims are made to the same land in terms of almost "We were there first - it's ours", will again raise the issue of ethnicity, that it could raise the whole issue of ethnicity, that it will come to the fore?
WDK. I think we've managed for the last year or two to give ethnicity a very low profile but Buthelezi started the thing to play the ethnicity drum of the Zulus. He switched from the Inkatha accent to the Zulu accent, pulling the King in, etc., etc. Yes ethnicity will be a very, very definite factor in this whole regional question, yes. But I don't think that the National Party and the ANC will settle on a kind of an ethnic deal. They won't do that.
POM. What struck me as odd, FW gave an interview, I don't know whether it was to the Times here or whatever, I picked it up in the Financial Times, where there was strong headline that he saw power sharing had to be entrenched in the constitution on a permanent basis. Three weeks later power sharing as such had been abandoned. It seemed like rather a dramatic switch in a short period of time.
WDK. I would say, I don't want to use the usual thing that he was quoted out of context, I don't want to say that, but I think that there was a shift away from the entrenched coalition principle to the principle that coalition is enforced in the interim constitution for at least five years. There was a switch. I think again that was plan A of the Nationalist Party but it was absolutely out of hand, finally rejected by the ANC. But then talks behind closed doors, I think there was a lobby around F W de Klerk and also a lobby from the ANC, I would say the realists in the ANC, that this whole question of power sharing, of coalition, it's enforced now for the following four/five years but it will become part and parcel of the South African solution and that we can't sell that to our masses being a liberation movement. They also switched from a take-over of power to a sharing of power, that was also a switch within the ANC but they must sell this to their power base.
POM. In fact it would be very difficult for them to go electioneering on a platform in which the draft constitution contained permanent enforced power sharing.
WDK. Yes and I think there is also speculation that F W de Klerk will call a Federal Congress for the Nationalist Party somewhere before, say, the middle of September, before the next extra parliamentary session to report back on the shifts made in policy and why that was done. I am sure that that's necessary because there was a shift on regionalism to a certain extent, there was a shift on power sharing to a certain extent, there was a shift on the whole constitution making situation, as I've said that the negotiating forum must bring the new constitution and not a Constituent Assembly. So there were shifts in National Party policy more to the middle, to accommodate the ANC, to find a solution, to find a compromise.
POM. You find this that when one looks at CODESA you had two power blocs, the ANC and its allies and the government and their allies and they were kind of playing adversarial roles. This time round there are three power blocs and it looks as though the government or the ANC have switched dancing partners so to speak and it's more now an alignment between the National Party and the ANC and COSAG out there on its own. How do you think that shift in, that's a strategic shift in a way, how did it come about?
WDK. You mean the closer links between the ANC and the National Party?
POM. Yes, at one time the government last year was cultivating Inkatha and trying to pull it in and now sometimes it seems as though it's trying to kick it out.
WDK. I think the government recognised the fact, also via opinion polls and via lobbies and so on, that it will be possible to govern South Africa and get stability, etc., etc. if there is an alliance between the ANC and the National Party, that the ANC represents the vast majority of people and I'm not that pessimistic, I mean optimistic or pessimistic, Laurie Schlemmer and others they say the ANC will be lucky if they can gain a 55% or a 52% vote. I still believe that the ANC will have between 60% and 65% of the total vote and I think they became aware of that. That's number one.
. Number two, I know there was something wrong with the chemistry between Mandela and de Klerk, it's still not really 100% but I think the National Party people, negotiators, and the ANC negotiators discovered that their thinking is more or less in line with each other and that Buthelezi is a very erratic person. Inkatha haven't got that kind of support and politics is about power and to maintain power for the National Party representing more or less white people, Indians, Coloureds and a few blacks, representing western democratic principles, that to maintain their power the best strategic move is to do that in co-operation with the ANC. But during the election period I think there will be a hell of a clash between the ANC and the National Party. They will go full out for the ANC and vice versa to gain support.
POM. Is Buthelezi a wild card in the sense that if his accommodations are not met, if his demands are not accommodated in some manner, that he can be disruptive to the whole process, that you would have a South Africa after the elections which was inherently unstable, that if he stayed out of elections there would be violence in Natal, violence in the townships?
WDK. That's a worrying factor but then on the other hand there is more than speculation that Buthelezi will come back to the negotiations. He hasn't left negotiations but that Buthelezi will be accommodated and there will be a back door and a face saving device for Buthelezi to remain in the system, let's put it that way. But if not there is also within, and you must check that with your Inkatha contacts and so on, there is also within Inkatha, within the KwaZulu government a mood to reject Buthelezi, a mood that is really not representing mainstream thinking within the elitist group of Zulu leaders. So Buthelezi is fighting for - you know, one must see this also, contracts will be final within the next two, three, four weeks and it's a last kind of a demonstration of power to gain power within the new set up. That's one motivation from Buthelezi.
POM. He would like his power in some way guaranteed before an election because in an election he may not do all that well?
WDK. Yes. And then they will say, well you haven't got anything to stand on. Yes, but that's the more optimistic viewpoint that Buthelezi will be accommodated, there will be a back door, there will be face saving things and even this Andries Beyers of the Afrikaner Volksunie will be more or less satisfied, not satisfied but, "I don't like the whole deal but I'm going in the deal", that kind of thing, and that the CP will be isolated and that the CP membership at grassroots level, about 40% to 50% of CP people will say, "We're not going to vote for the CP. It's a waste of our vote. We must gang up with the National Party to strengthen the whole white representation in parliament", and that they will be a little bit isolated. Mangope can wait a bit because that's not that urgent now before the election to finalise the whole question of the independent states and so on. That's the optimistic view. But there's also the pessimistic view that, yes, Buthelezi can disrupt the whole thing. Buthelezi won't delay the whole election process. We will vote on the 27th April I'm very sure about that. But he can derail the whole process. That's the more pessimistic viewpoint. Therefore both the ANC and the National Party are going out of their way to accommodate Buthelezi and to persuade him and I think they are also willing to make some more compromises to accommodate him.
POM. He will end up with some special status for KwaZulu with some special arrangements?
WDK. Yes, special.
POM. I wondered about that in this context, talking to IFP and ANC people in Natal and the bitterness that exists between them and very often people like Harry Gwala think that the national leadership is totally out of touch with what's going on in their region, hints of rebellion.
WDK. You mean the national leadership of the ANC?
POM. Yes, trying to pull them in or rein them in. They were against the meeting between Mandela and Buthelezi, could never see why that meeting should take place. Do you think that if they now find that Buthelezi gets some special consideration that they simply might not accept it?
WDK. The ANC people in Natal?
POM. In Natal.
WDK. That's the worrying factor for Mandela. You've touched upon the most delicate situation in our politics now here during August and that is will Mandela and Buthelezi and their leadership, will they find each other in a kind of a compromise and will the National Party and Buthelezi and the ANC as the three cornerstones of the whole thing, will they find each other in a kind of compromise and what will Buthelezi do when he's just left out of the whole thing and what will the ANC response in Natal be? That's indeed the crucial question but I think they are working very hard on this, day by day and week by week with delegations and meetings behind closed doors between Inkatha and ANC and between leadership personalities and the church, etc., etc. to try to solve this whole thing but it is really dangerous.
POM. What about last year? The right had kind of been written off after their defeat in the referendum and they were in disarray and were disorganised and no coherent leadership. One comes back this year and appears to find them with the potential to be a very important player. What has happened?
WDK. They have not really consolidated. I would say that that's part and parcel of the whole feeling of urgency that if we don't move now and demonstrate and try to make a hell of a lot of noise and to show our fists and to organise and to mobilise, etc., etc., it's the last chance because everything will be settled somewhere during September. So that's also part of demonstration politics I would say and they tried their utmost best to find coherence and I don't think it's there. They are double-tongued. The CP is another grouping than this Constand Viljoen and the Volksfront grouping. Carel Boshoff and his small group is very satisfied with the region that will possibly be theirs, the Western Cape, Namaqualand and that region. The AWB is becoming more and more an embarrassment for the right wing movements and this Andries Beyers with a more moderate and pragmatic approach boil him down to the fact that, "Give us a province, give us a region and there will be no discrimination in this region, there will be no forced removals and we will work with blacks, Indians, Coloureds in that region, we will work a solution out to accommodate all of them in the governing of that kind of region". That kind of pragmatic approach, even, I won't say accepted, but Mandela is very sympathetic towards Andries Beyers in this regard, that his potential to gain more support from the right wing grassroots level is there.
POM. Is that at the expense of the Conservative Party?
WDK. At the expense of the Conservative Party. I see Constand Viljoen and Tienie Groenewald, the two Generals, I don't think that's something permanent. I think that was a last resort for the CP to call in these two Generals, they are high profile people and not politicians at all and perhaps they can help in the mobilisation of a very militant right wing. I would say I really think that during the electioneering process the CP will be very adamant but after the election I'm very sure that Andries Beyers will be the more successful man in that family and his following and that there will be large proportion of CP people who will accept the fact that, "We're in the new dispensation, we're going to have a government of national unity, it's going to be a five year period and we must accept that." But there will be a militant right wing and we are used to that so I don't believe that violence will be simmering down in South Africa. I think there will be violence during the election and I think the interim government will have a lot of violent groupings to the left and the right.
POM. Just talking of the violence, what accounts for the intensity of the violence and the way, the mutilations, the burnings of the bodies, digging up bodies to burn them, it's like a craziness that has got into people that is running totally out of control.
WDK. I would say that's, I'm not a psychologist, but I think that simple crime and criminals are at play in the violence situation now. Violence is also politicised but it's plain criminal violence and I would say more or less satanic violence to demonstrate and to intimidate people. I think that's at the heart of the thing now. It's really not violence all over the country with large masses that's part and parcel of this violent attitude. It's small criminal and semi-criminal groupings and highly politicised extremists within the ANC or Inkatha or wherever and a lot of emotion and a motivation to intimate the whole process and to derail the whole process.
POM. Do you think that Mandela in that sense is in charge of his constituency, that the ANC can enforce discipline at the grassroots in the townships or that the thing has simply gotten away from them?
WDK. No I don't think it's gotten away from them. I would say, yes, they can enforce discipline to a certain extent. There's always this fringe grouping. But I would say within the framework of the ANC following, marshals and local leaders on community level, I think there is a direct line from the leadership to them and I think that they are in control of the vast majority but they can't control the fringe elements within the ANC. There are radicals and realists in the ANC, the realists being more compromise orientated, etc., etc., and the radicals more PAC, revolutionary, struggle orientated, militant and so on. But even his radical faction within the ANC I think there is enough communication between leadership and those people and I think they accepted the fact that there can't be a schism now, they must pull their weight together to perform in the election. I'm not worried that the vast majority of masses will get out of control. I think there is this line, but the fringes, yes.
POM. Would you say the same about Inkatha?
WDK. I would say the same thing about Inkatha and I would say the same thing about the right wing movements. I would say that the parliamentary leaders and the cultural leaders and the religious leaders, that there is a direct line to control their people but there is also a fringe there, that kind of a criminalized fringe. And that goes for the Nationalist Party too. Who can handle masses of people? Nobody, a politician can't do that but I don't think the threat clearly now is there. I would say after the interim government's governing period of four years, three years, four years, maximum five years, if this interim government can't deliver on the social, economic issues then there will be a new revolution within the black community rejecting this ANC government or this coalition government and then we're in for trouble because then it will be a struggle from scratch again and then it will be a kind of takeover of power by the radicals.
POM. The PAC is sitting out there hoping that they will just have to bide their time and that an interim government really can't do all that much.
WDK. So the PAC during the period of the interim government will do their utmost best to sabotage the government so we must all pray and work for the success of the interim government. I would say the most dangerous years for South Africa are not from now until the election. I don't think that things will dramatically happen from now to the election that will blow up the whole thing but the dramatic years will be the five years, not even five, 1994, 1995, let's say middle 1996.
POM. Good, because my manuscript is due by March of 1997. Give it a push on! Going back to power sharing, is this a difference in semantics when one talks about power sharing and a government of national unity? Is it merely semantics?
WDK. It's semantics, yes.
POM. But essentially the ANC finds it more convenient to talk about a government of national unity to its constituency.
WDK. They don't like the concept of power sharing and the connotation for their following is not good. Again the National Party must deal in power sharing, that was a key work in National Party rhetoric so that they still play that word very hard but it's a semantic question, it's the same thing.
POM. Chris Hani's assassination, what impact do you think that had, if any, on the internal politics of the alliance and in the broader sense on the politics of the country?
WDK. I would say Chris Hani's assassination, Mandela was really the man who gained most out of this assassination in this sense that he was very responsible, he was really. I think FW lost out on this one, he didn't handle the thing very sensitively. All of a sudden Mandela was every day on television and asking his people to be calm and to forgive, not to see this in a racial context and he gained in stature and in credibility, also in the international world but also in South Africa from Chris Hani's death. I would say Mandela came out very strong after Chris Hani's death because he played politics of peace and reconciliation and there was no war talk after Chris Hani's death from his side. So I think Chris Hani's death was a shock for the black and white people that this kind of thing is playing with dynamite and that we must avoid this kind of thing. I think it was a shock in a certain sense, a very good kind of injection in the system, anti-violent injection.
POM. Just echoing what you said, I picked up a quote one place which said: "The balance of power shifted to the ANC, Nelson Mandela and not de Klerk issued a televised appeal for calm, a tacit admission that only Mandela could prevent the descent into chaos. De Klerk controlled the state, Mandela controlled the nation."
WDK. Yes, I agree with that one. I fully agree with that.
POM. The same thing with Bisho?
WDK. Bisho was also in the long run let's say good for South Africa not bad. I'm not underplaying it, it's a sad thing for the people involved and so on, but being part of the process I would say it had a positive effect afterwards.
POM. In the sense that people understood the necessity to get back to the negotiating table?
WDK. That's the only solution and not this kind of thing. So, yes, I don't think that we reaped a lot of trouble after Hani's death. I would say we worked it through constructively. And if I say 'we', I would say especially the ANC and the leadership and the masses.
POM. The APLA killings. Are they not a variable out there that could be a stick of dynamite in terms of repercussions?
WDK. You mean from whose point of view?
POM. From the white point of view.
WDK. Yes. I think we're very worried about APLA because it seems to me that there is no real communication between the PAC leadership and the APLA leadership. Of course the people say, they want to use the propaganda, so it's sometimes overstated but I think the truth of the matter is that the PAC leadership is also very worried about certain members of APLA trying to organise this kind of disruptive violence and hopefully the PAC leadership, the political leaders will gradually move a little bit more to the centre and they will discipline APLA. But then there will be a lot of APLA people who will be part of this fringe terrorist kind of violent criminal element in South Africa.
POM. There is this widespread perception, I've picked it up just about everywhere, that beyond the Record of Understanding that the government and the ANC cut a deal and that the World Trade Centre negotiating council is really the trappings, they are railroading their own agenda through.
WDK. I would say, yes I think so. The National Party, of course, reject it and say it is not true. They can't afford to say that's true.
POM. But you think it's true?
WDK. I'm very sure it's true, yes. I'm sure there's a deal, yes. Let's say it's not a deal that worries me. I would say the deal amounts to this that we are the two main forces in South African politics, we must help each other to get stability in the country for the next five years. We are going to be the main actors in the coalition, in the government of national unity and we must try to sort things out now so that after the election we can immediately start putting the house in order and we must have a gentleman's agreement that we are going to fight each other but we are not going to break each other down and there will be a meaningful representation of Nationalists in the government of national unity. I think there's even a deal regarding FW's position to a certain extent, that if he wants to go on in politics I think he will play a prominent role in the new government of national unity. But nobody will admit this in public now during election time, but there is a deal yes.
POM. I find that interesting in terms of - I did a kind of a focus group with a number of residents of Orange Farm which is a location about 30 km out and one of the things that emerged was people's fear of violence on election day or that the losing black side would not accept the results, that Inkatha would not accept the results if the ANC got 84% and they got 3%. And almost a grudging kind of acknowledgement that they might be better off if the Afrikaners got returned to power.
WDK. Yes perhaps. Yes, you know, Mr O'Malley, that's the worrying fact. Therefore this whole Election Commission that must be appointed and legalised via the parliamentary session during September, that there will be a code of conduct and there will be the whole monitoring system of international figures and restructuring of the police force and the army and Peace Corps and a lot of things and also the stipulation of the acceptance of the outcome of the election, the results of the election. But that's no guarantee. But if there is a small margin between parties that can be a problem but I don't think that that will be the case. Again I would say, I've written this down, I want to give you this paper of mine, but according to a lot of people that the outcome will be in the interim parliament there will be 220 members of the ANC, 95 members of the NP, 25 of the IFP, 15 of the PAC and the rest more or less 45 will be DP, CP and other smaller parties.
POM. How many would make the 5% threshold?
WDK. I think that's the idea of 5% threshold. There's also a lobby going on, I'm not very well informed of this, but I know that perhaps they must lift this 5% threshold. I don't think that will be a wise thing to gain more representation of ANC/National Party members in parliament.
POM. That would make it appear too exclusive.
WDK. That's my worry but I don't think it's on the table already but I know there's a lobby to say let's accept the fact that the ANC/National Party must rule and give them the opportunity via the percentage not to be bothered with a lot of small groupings. But I don't think that lobby will win the argument.
POM. Finally, I had a conversation this morning with Pallo Jordan who rejects this whole power sharing strategy as political suicide. He seems very much not to the left of his party but outside of it in terms of the actual agenda that is being followed. Who would you point to as the people in the ANC to watch who would be to the left of the centre so to speak.
WDK. I don't catch your question exactly. Let me give you the first part of the answer. I would say Pallo Jordan, perhaps you are better informed on this than I am, he is a man with no following at all. He's very competent, they owe him something, they are very pleased with his way of doing things, he's very responsible and so on, but politically speaking he's not a major factor within the ANC leadership. He's an outsider, his own man kind of thing, the kind of intellectual, kind of spoiler, the devil's advocate kind of thing. But he's not a man of influence within the ANC even on grassroots levels. That's as far as Pallo Jordan is concerned.
. I would say that if you use my distinction between radicals and realists, I would say that the realists in the ANC are definitely in power now and that's Ramaphosa and Mbeki and Zuma and the two Pahads and the Mbowenis and the Economic Desk people and so on. Pallo Jordan is something on his own, he's not part of a grouping. And then there are the radicals, Gwala is one specific example but there are a lot of radicals, faceless radicals. Therefore I am sure that there will be a schism in the ANC before the next election in 1998 but there won't be something now because that would be absolutely suicidal for any political party now, before the election, to break out of the fold.
POM. I find it very hard to think of COSATU and the ANC staying together.
WDK. There was speculation, you've seen that in the newspapers, a COSATU spokesperson said that after the election we're going our own way. But I see that was rejected about two days ago in the paper, but it's all part of electioneering.
POM. OK.
WDK. I'm not on my best today, sometimes one is more sharp than other times. This is a presentation on the interim government, the election of an interim government, the composition and life of the interim government, the priorities of the interim government and the scenario after the interim government has served its turn. I delivered this paper this morning, the audience was a lot of bankers and so on.