Cope's newest acquisition, former DA politician Nick Koornhof, on Tuesday poured cold water on the party's hopes of governing the country after next year's elections.

"If you are talking about national government, I think it will be naive to say that," he told a media conference in Cape Town, where he announced he was joining the party.

There was, however, a real possibility of partnership in coalition government in the Western Cape and perhaps Gauteng.

Koornhof said Cope was "the right thing for the right time".

"It might just become, you know, a government in ten years."

Cope's leaders have repeatedly said they are contesting the elections to become a government, not an opposition.

Koornhof became an MP for the National Party in 1987, then moved to the DA and the Western Cape provincial legislature, where he served as MEC for health and for education.

He quit politics and the DA ahead of the last general election, in 2004, and has been working as a lawyer.

He said on Tuesday that politics was in his blood, and that the newly-formed Cope had "reactivated my energy and love for politics".

"Suddenly you realise the future is on your doorstep. I am ready to join the path to a future stronger democracy," he said.

He said he had no problem with DA leader Helen Zille, and got along well with her.

But, he said, "if you do not have black majority support you cannot become a real opposition".

"If the Afrikaner community does not realise that and show their support the way I'm doing it today, there is no future."

He said that if he was lucky enough to make it onto Cope's list of candidates, he would like to go back to Parliament.

Cope Western Cape convenor Leonard Ramatlakane told the briefing that 32,000 people had signed up as members of the party in the province.

The figure for the Free State was over 70,000 and in the North West, about 64,000.

"We are going into the election in 2009 not to become the opposition," he said. We are going into that opposition [sic] to govern."