The NNP joins the ANC

The New National Party (NNP) announced its dissolution and merger with the ruling African National Congress (ANC). A NNP statement said that individual members of the NNP would be encouraged to join the ANC in their respective localities. The NNP would in future contest elections under the banner of the ANC. Officials would retain their party membership and parliamentary and local government seats as a transitional arrangement until September 2005. ANC Minister of Defence Moisua Lekota welcomed the decision, but former State President F.W. de Klerk relinquished his NNP membership, saying the party has gone too far in merging with the ANC, an opinion held by many other NNP members.