 The NRP was overshadowed by the PFP as an opposition party, in terminal decline by 1987 and dissolving itself shortly after.At the same time, disaffected NP members such as Dennis Worrall and Wynand Malan broke away and later formed the Independent Party which absorbed the remaining base of the NRP.Frederik van Zyl Slabbert, PFP leader since 1979, resigned from parliament in 1986 because it had, in his view, become irrelevant.