of the conference, many of the participating delegates agreed to aggregate their small, ethnically defined parties into one bigger body that was able to form a counterbalance to SWAPO. Mudge founded the Republican Party (RP) shortly before the Turnhalle proceedings finished. The RP joined when on 5 November 1977 the Democratic Turnhalle Alliance (DTA) was founded with Clemens Kapuuo as first president and Dirk Mudge as chairman. At that time Mudge founded Die Republikein, until today the only Afrikaans daily, as a mouthpiece of the RP. He also established Democratic Media Holdings (today Namibia Media Holdings), the publishing agency of the newspaper. In interim governments of South West Africa The subsequent 1978 South West African legislative election was won by the DTA by a landslide, which claimed 41 of the 50 seats. Although these elections were the first multi-racial elections in the territory of South West Africa there were allegations of widespread intimidation, not least by the presence of South African troops in the north of the territory. The United Nations Security Council declared these elections "null and void". On 1 July 1980 Mudge became the chairman of the Council of Ministers of the resulting government. The Council resigned in 1983, and the administration of South West Africa was executed by the South African occupiers again. In September 1983 the Multi-Party Conference (MPC) was established which consisted of 19 "internal" (that is, South West African) parties. After considering his options, Mudge agreed to become the DTA representative on this conference, although he had hoped for a different outcome of its proceedings: As in the past, they [proposers of the MPC] did not have any problems in convincing members of the DTA and other parties to participate, seeing that there would be financial benefits involved. I found myself standing alone in the DTA and, much against my will, I agreed to participate – provided that the MPC confine itself to a discussion on constitutional proposals, and that an interim government would not be considered. I should have known better. It did not take long before the possibility of another interim government was raised and strongly supported by virtually every member of the MPC. The MPC suggested in its April 1985 Bill of Fundamental Rights and Objectives the establishment of a Transitional Government of National Unity (TNGU). South Africa followed this suggestion three months later, setting up a forced coalition government under