The Battle of the Bergs

By Kenneth W. Banta

Botha wins mixed support for constitutional reform

Afrikaners call it broedertwis, a fight between brothers. For months the once close-knit tribe of mainly Dutch-descended whites who control South African politics had been locked in a nasty family feud that centered on the "Battle of the Bergs," two special by-elections in the Transvaal region. At rallies for the candidates of the ruling National Party, Prime Minister Pieter W. Botha was jeered by hecklers supporting opponents in the far-right Conservative Party who accused him of plotting to "give away" white domination of the government to blacks. Losing his customary composure, Botha shouted back. As tempers rose, fistfights routinely broke out among factions in the crowds.

The single issue in the hysterical campaign was Botha's controversial plan, announced a year ago, to modify South Africa's rigid apartheid laws by giving limited voting rights to Asians and "coloreds" (people of mixed race). Last week the white voters finally delivered a complicated message. In his first election bid since he broke away from the National Party last year to form the new Conservative Party, former Cabinet Minister Andries Treurnicht soundly defeated Nationalist Candidate Eban Cuyler in the heavily Afrikaner district of Waterberg. But that apparent repudiation of Botha's planned reforms was offset by a National Party victory next door in the equally Afrikaner district of Soutpansberg, where the Prime Minister's close ally, Manpower Minister Fanie Botha (no relation), narrowly beat the Conservative candidate.

The results add up to a qualified victory for Botha. Some National Party supporters had been deeply concerned that they might lose in both of the rural conservative constituencies. The split result came as a relief, but it showed nonetheless that Prime Minister Botha had lost many votes to the right. In a third by-election, in Pretoria's suburb of Waterkloof, the Nationalists overwhelmed both the liberal Progressive Federal Party and the Conservatives. For Botha, it was welcome evidence of his continued appeal among urban whites. Still, Treurnicht's success was a clear signal that Botha can expect vehement resistance from right-wingers to any further modification of the apartheid system. The proposed partial enfranchisement of Asians and coloreds, declared the deputy leader of the Conservatives, Ferdie Hartzenberg, was "a recipe for conflict."

Botha's controversial "power sharing" proposal would scrap South Africa's current parliamentary system. Under a new constitution drafted by Botha, a Gaullist-style President would exercise sweeping powers, while South Africa's 2.8 million coloreds and 900,000 Asians would be granted limited representation according to a formula that would keep final legislative control firmly in white hands. Excluded entirely from the process would be South Africa's 20 million blacks. Under the government's longstanding "homelands" policy, they would continue to be forced to accept artificial citizenship in largely inhospitable "autonomous" black states, far from white population centers.

The constitutional reform, which is almost certain to be approved in a nationwide referendum among white voters later this year or early in 1984, came after signs of reform from Botha, including the establishment of black trade unions in 1979. It was enough to trigger Treurnicht's defection from the National Party, and has exacerbated developing rifts among Afrikaners. The changes, said Jaap Marais, leader of the small, radical-right Herstigte Nasionale Party, were aimed "at breaking the political power of the white man in South Africa."

The plan had other detractors. Botha's supporters feared that it would give too much power to the President. White liberals castigated the plan's failure to move far enough toward racial equality. Exclusion of blacks from power, said Frederik van Zyl Slabbert, leader of the opposition Progressive Federal Party, would increase "the polarization between black and white and heighten the potential for confrontation." Zulu Chief Gatsha Buthelezi was blunter. Said he: "We look upon the constitutional proposals with condemnation and contempt."

Last week's election demonstrated, however, that Botha could count on support from a broad range of white opinion. Much of that may simply reflect the hope that Botha intends to maintain apartheid while making cosmetic changes to placate its foes. Whatever Botha's private view, he may have initiated a process of slow change that will be impossible to reverse. Says a liberal white South African journalist: "The train is rolling down the track now. It can't turn back."

The movement so far has been glacial but visible, especially in recent decisions to do away with the most obvious discrimination known as petty apartheid. In the past few years, public events and facilities ranging from opera houses to restaurants, sports tournaments and even park benches have been desegregated. Blacks now may legally walk on the formerly all-white beaches of the port city of Durban. Botha himself appealed for better treatment of blacks last year, asking: "Can't we speak to them nicely and show them we are a Christian nation?"

Yet for every heartening change in South Africa's schizophrenic racial policies, there seems to be a dispiriting example of apartheid's continuing virulence. Pretoria's city council has secured 17 city parks with attack dogs and uniformed guards to keep out "undesirable elements," meaning blacks. Last month, in a move that provoked an international uproar, authorities insisted that only a segregated audience, excluding Indians, could see the Johannesburg premiere of the Oscar-winning film Gandhi. As the government's critics acidly point out, until such ugly incidents are erased from daily life, there is little reason to hope for genuine steps toward broader political reform.

--By Kenneth W. Banta. Reported by Peter Hawthorne/Johannesburg

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