The Not-So-Favorite Choice

A hard-liner becomes John Vorster 's successor

It was the first time in 20 years and only the second time in its 30-year rule that South Africa's National Party had needed a ballot to determine its new leader. All three declared candidates, representing rival segments within the party, had remained in the race until the end. As the 172-member party caucus proceeded through two rounds of secret balloting, tension mounted in the crowd gathered outside Capetown's white-columned senate building. Finally the doors opened: Defense Minister Pieter W. ("P.W.") Botha, 62, an uncompromising hardliner, had been chosen to succeed retiring Prime Minister John Vorster.

As Botha prepared to give his acceptance speech, the crowd broke into a chant: "We want Pik, we want Pik. . ." They were shouting for Roelof F. ("Pik") Botha, 46, South Africa's ebullient, relatively liberal Foreign Minister, and no relation to P.W. To an august body that views its deliberations as if they involved the affairs of God rather than those of men, the jeers were alarming--like rocks thrown through a stained-glass window. Moreover, this unseemly challenge to Nationalist orthodoxy underscored the vicious factional infighting that had taken place during the succession battle.

There was no doubt that Pik Botha was the public favorite. An opinion poll of South African whites the week before the caucus had shown him leading by 83% over the other two candidates. He was also reputedly Vorster's choice for Prime Minister. But Pik's popularity --and his junior status as a minister appointed only 18 months ago--rankled his colleagues. In the end, he was forced to drop out, after receiving only 22 votes on the first ballot.

That left the contest between P.W. and Cornelius Petrus ("Connie") Mulder, 53, another ideological conservative, a party power in the Transvaal province, and Minister of Plural Relations overseeing government affairs with nonwhites. Despite a still simmering scandal involving financial irregularities in the Information Department that was formerly under his ministry, Mulder scored 72 votes on the first ballot, against 78 for P.W. Botha. By prior agreement, Pik Botha gave the Defense Minister the winning majority by throwing his votes to P.W.

Afterward the new Prime Minister admitted that the caucus battle, his chilly reception and the country's problems left him with no real sense of victory. "It's a hard job," he said, "and I have no illusions whatsoever." Aloof, autocratic and given to occasional outbursts of temper, Botha is essentially a party man, who rose through the ranks as leader of the relatively small western Cape, still the historically sacred region of Afrikaner origins. He is not the patient negotiator that Vorster was. But he has proved to be a shrewd organizer. After becoming Defense Minister in 1966, he characteristically turned the ministry into a personal fief. At the same time he systematically built up an awesome military machine.

In that post, he was an outspoken hawk on military matters. He was responsible for South Africa's commitment of troops in the Angolan civil war in 1975, and championed its aggressive border war against militant nationalists of the South West African People's Organization (SWAPO) in Namibia (South West Africa). He played a key role in South Africa's rejection two weeks ago of the United Nations plan for granting Namibia independence, a policy he is now unlikely to change, even at the risk of U.N.-imposed economic sanctions. Foreign observers hoped that the swing votes of Pik Botha's supporters might have a liberalizing effect on policymaking within the Cabinet. Others feared that Mulder's strong showing would put pressure on P.W. to hew to an unremittingly hard line and not compromise.

Optimists searching for some sign that being Prime Minister might soften Botha's positions a little noted that this dour, seemingly unimaginative Afrikaner has repeatedly told friends, in strongly emotional terms, that his mother and sister were saved from English marauders during the Boer War by a colored woman who took them in. In some instances, he has favored apartheid reforms, as in theaters and in the military. But pressed last week to elaborate on his stand on racial discrimination, Botha would say only, "I intend to carry out the policy of my party." In South African terms, that is shorthand for no change in the government's racial position.

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