CAPE TOWN, Dec 5 (AFP) - A member of South Africa's apartheid-era New National Party (NNP) was Wednesday sworn in as premier of the key Western Cape province as part of a power-sharing deal with the ruling African National Congress (ANC).
The former mayor of Cape Town, Premier Peter Marais, immediately announced a new provincial cabinet in which the ANC and the NNP have equal representation with six members each, giving them joint control of the province.
It is the outcome of a deal between the two parties reached on November 27 that will see the two former arch foes work together on provincial and national levels, with the NNP expected to get seats in President Thabo Mbeki's cabinet.
The NNP and the official opposition Democratic Alliance jointly ruled the Western Cape until last month but the announcement of the new cabinet has relegated the DA to the opposition benches in the province.
The new partnership has for first time put the ANC in power in the Western Cape, the only one of the country's nine provinces it has failed to rule since the advent of democracy in 1994.
It also marks a realignment in national politics, with the NNP trumpeting a return to "multi-party government" five years after it walked out of the government of national unity (GNU).
The GNU agreement, which lasted for two years, gave the NNP six cabinet posts while Nelson Mandela was president.
The party has in recent years suffered a decline in fortune -- it only polled six percent in elections in 1999. Sources predicted Wednesday it would likely have fewer seats this time around.
Analysts have warned that the NNP will have to tailor its policies to those of the ANC.
The party will be forced to govern the Western Cape in consensus with the ANC as Marais will not have a decisive vote in his cabinet and deadlocks will be referred to the national leadership of the NNP and ANC.
But the flamboyant new premier, who was mayor of Cape Town until November 21, on Wednesday appeared to be heading for trouble with the ANC leadership.
Marais said during his inaugural speech: "HIV causes AIDS, fullstop," showing little caution for the views of Mbeki who controversially questions the link between the virus and AIDS and has tolerated no dissent from his own ANC politicians on the matter.
Marais urged the government to make anti-retroviral drugs widely available to some 4.7 million HIV-positive South Africans, something Mbeki has steadfastly refused to do.
"We need a national effort headed by the premiers of the nine provinces and by somebody in the president's office," Marais declared.
The drug Nevirapine, which drastically reduces the risk of mother-to-child HIV transmission, has been widely available in the Western Cape while it was under DA and NNP control.
Aids activists took the national government to court last month to force the government to provide nevirapine to HIV-positive pregnant women across the country.
"I do not think I am contradicting the president. I am just following the mainstream, I can do that," Marais unapologetically said Wednesday.
Marais has given the portfolios of health, education and tourism in his cabinet to NNP members. Finance and job creation posts have gone to the ANC.
Marais quit as Cape Town's mayor to pursue a "bright future" within the NNP-ANC deal.
He is of mixed-race descent and has long been seen as a vote-catcher among that race group -- which makes up the majority of the Western Cape's population.
His appointment fits with the NNP's stated hopes that its pact with the ANC will promote reconciliation between South Africa's black majority and its white, Indian and mixed-race minorities.
Analysts have predicted that the party will try to refashion itself as a champion of minorities -- similar to the way in which it rose to power in the 1940s by exploiting Afrikaners' fears for their survival amidst a black majority -- but expect limited success.
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