Apr 9, 3:25 PM (ET)
By CLARE NULLIS
CAPE TOWN, South Africa (AP) - The party linked to decades of white racist rule in South Africa formally left the political stage Saturday, its leader apologizing for "a system grounded in injustice."
The federal council of the New National Party - the successor to the National Party that led apartheid - overwhelmingly approved the party's dissolution at a meeting in Johannesburg. This followed the party's decision last year to join forces with the ruling African National Congress after a humiliating defeat in national elections.
"What we do today is part of our contribution to finally ending the division of the South African soul," said NNP leader Marthinus van Schalkwyk. "The forerunner of the NNP, the NP, brought development to a section of South Africa, but it also brought suffering through a system grounded in injustice."
In the vote, 88 members were in favor of the motion to disband, two were against and three abstained.
The National Party, which came to power in 1948, presided over 48 years of systematic and often brutal oppression of the country's black majority, who were denied the right to vote or to mix with whites.
