THE South African parliament reconvenes today with Mr F. W. de Klerk's National Party occupying the opposition benches for the first time in almost half a century, having withdrawn from President Nelson Mandela's government in June.
Mr De Klerk, South Africa's last president under the old order which denied the black majority a parliamentary vote, led the National Party out of the African National Congress dominated coalition in a bid to raise its profile in preparation for the 1999 election.
The pending parliamentary session presents the National Party with two issues on which to attack the ANC and garner support for itself.
The first involves the controversy over charges by Gen Bantu Holomisa after his dismissal as the Deputy Minister of Environmental Affairs and Tourism that the ANC accepted money from the casino mogul, Mr Sol Kerzner, at a time when he was seeking to have bribery charges quashed.
The second issue is the emergence of a Muslim based vigilante movement, People Against Gangsterism And Drugs (Pagad), and its threat to take the law into its own hands because of the apparent inability of the government to curb the rising crime rate.
Developments yesterday kept these potentially explosive questions on centre stage as a dramatic overture to the reconvening of parliament. In a move which boosted Gen Holomisa's credibility, Mr Mandela admitted that Mr Kerzner had contributed money to the ANC, thus appearing to contradict an earlier ANC statement accusing the general of peddling "blatant lies".
As South Africans were pondering the unlikely axis between the ANC and Mr Kerzner - between a movement in formal alliance with the South African Communist Party and an archetypal capitalist who has admitted paying 2 million rand (about £285,000) to a former Transkei prime minister - Pagad zealots and sympathisers underlined their threat to "take out" gangsters during marches in Cape Town, Johannesburg and Durban.
The volatile situation in Cape Town was exacerbated by a counter march by gang leaders protesting against the killing a week ago of Rashaad Staggie, co leader with his twin, Rashied, of the Hard Livings gang. But Mr De Klerk's party is likely to find it difficult to attack the ANC too sharply without laying itself open to bruising counter attacks.
On the Kerzner issue, the National Party will be handicapped by its reluctance to disclose who donated money to its election coffers. There is, as one ANC deputy, Mr Willie Hofmeyr, told The Irish Times, another question: did the National Party receive money from Mr Kerzner (who is known to have supported the NP's 1983 constitution which excluded blacks)?
. The "abduction of three tourists" which dominated South African news bulletins last Friday has turned out to be a hoax. The mini bus driver, who reported that his tourist passengers had been abducted by car hijackers, made up the tale to cover the hijacking of the minibus during an unauthorised trip to Alexandra, a black township on the outskirts of Johannesburg.