Ever Right

Roadblocks to moderation

The routine by-election in Germiston, a working-class suburb of Johannesburg, should have been a shoo-in for Prime Minister Pieter W. Botha's National Party. Instead, Flip van der Walt, 63, barely won, carrying the district by a mere 308 of the 9,111 ballots cast. The vote reflects deep, corrosive divisions among South African whites over the country's future direction. The Rand Daily Mail judged the outcome the nation's "biggest electoral shock since 1948," when the National Party swept to power under the banner of white supremacy.

The contest centered on Botha's plan, announced in July, to modify South Africa's policy of apartheid by giving more rights to the country's 2.7 million coloreds, or citizens of mixed race, and its 835,000 Asians. Botha has proposed to divide Parliament into three chambers: one for South Africa's 5 million whites, another for the coloreds and a third for the Asians. Any conflict among the three chambers would be adjudicated by a white-controlled President's Council. The plan gives no political rights to the country's 20 million blacks, who are supposed to become citizens of "homelands" that will in theory, though not in practice, all become independent of South Africa. Botha's plan requires parliamentary approval, which is expected some time in 1983.

But last week's rebuff to the National Party cast doubt on Botha's ability to win support for his plan from many white Afrikaners. With more than 600 industries, including the world's largest gold refinery, Germiston (pop. 216,123) generally reflects the sentiments of the conservative industrial workers and farmers who have formed the backbone of the National Party. Said the pro-government Johannesburg Citizen: "The battle for Afrikanerdom is on with a vengeance, and the politics of South Africa will not be the same again."

Although blacks have little faith in Botha's avowed aim of softening the face of apartheid, the biggest threat to his plan comes from the Conservative Party, which was formed last March when 16 members of Parliament defected from the National Party. Led by Dr. Andries Treurnicht, 61, an ordained minister, the Conservatives have attacked Botha's plan as being too radical and accused him of leading South Africa toward "total integration." As Treurnicht said to his supporters at a Pietersburg rally, "The Prime Minister's stance has aroused the tiger in many Afrikaners, and the heartbeat of the nation tells me we are on the right road."

Treurnicht, whose resistance to any weakening of the whites' monopoly on power has won him the nickname "Dr. No," called his party's strong showing in its first test "fantastic." It means, he said, that Botha "has no mandate to go ahead with his reform policy." Indeed, the Conservatives would have won handily if the right-wing vote had not been split between their candidates, Willem Guy, 43, who drew 39.3% of the vote, and Jack Myburgh, 37, of the Herstigte Nasionale Party, who won 18%. So far, the Conservatives have remained aloof of the H.N.P., which stands unabashedly for white supremacy and has stridently attacked the Botha plan. But last week H.N.P. Leader Jaap Marais said he was prepared to consider joining the Conservatives in a right-wing alliance that would try to defeat the National Party in the parliamentary elections expected later this year. Marais confidently claimed that together the two parties could win roughly 100 of the 165 parliamentary seats. At the least, say political analysts in Johannesburg, a new right-wing alliance could end the National Party's control of South African politics.

Following the election, Botha's proposals won the unanimous approval of his party's Natal congress. At a rally for 1,200 supporters in Durban, the Prime Minister challenged Treurnicht to resign his seat so that a by-election could be held in his Waterberg constituency. "Then you will see a hell of a collision," Botha warned. Most important, he pledged that he would not deviate from his reformist views. Said he: "I have chosen my path. It is the path of my conviction, built on justice and fairness. It makes provision for the maintenance of civilized Christian standards in which South Africans can find each other, without destroying each other. " The next test of voter sentiment will come this autumn when by-elections are held in three more districts. qed

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