THE SLEAZE FACTOR

By Bruce W. Nelan

In Cape Town last week, motorcycle outriders escorted President Nelson Mandela to Parliament, where a red carpet ribboned down the granite steps. Leaving his limousine, Mandela was greeted by a navy honor guard in spotless whites. Air force jets flew overhead, and a 21-gun salute rang out from nearby Signal Hill. Beginning his second year in office, Mandela had arrived to open a new session of Parliament, and the spectacle suited the occasion--to all who remember apartheid, the very existence of a Mandela administration in South Africa is still amazing.

In his speech Mandela did not dwell on how far the country has come, however, but rather on how far it has to go. Corruption, crime, violence and strikes are threatening to get out of hand. ``The battle against the forces of anarchy and chaos,'' the President declared, ``has been joined.'' When it comes to ``rooting out corruption,'' he said, ``we will deal firmly and unequivocally with whoever may be involved.''

``Whoever may be involved''--that's just where one of Mandela's problems lies. The person who has received the most attention recently, both for embarrassing the government and for possibly feathering her nest, is Mandela's estranged wife Winnie. Two weeks ago in Johannesburg, at the funeral of a black police officer killed in a fight with white policemen, Winnie Mandela addressed the crowd of mourners. She accused the government of failing to eliminate racism from the workplace and of ``overindulgence in reconciliation'' with whites. ``Are we in power,'' she demanded, ``or just in the government?''

That was too much for the President. He ordered Winnie to retract her statement or resign her post as Deputy Minister of Arts and Culture. She submitted a letter that sought only to ``clarify'' her remarks. No, Mandela said, she would have to do better. Last week he accepted her second letter, in which she said she ``would like to apologize most sincerely for the impression the speech caused that I sought to condemn the government.''

Winnie Mandela has long been a problem for her husband and his colleagues in the African National Congress. During his 27 years in prison she was first a heroine of the antiapartheid movement and then an imperious rival to its leadership. The movement publicly condemned her in 1989 for inflicting a ``reign of terror'' on Soweto with her gang of bodyguards; she was later convicted of kidnapping. She now could pose a political threat to the President. Voicing her angry populism, she provides leadership to thousands of young, militant township dwellers who are impatient with a deliberative political process and cooperation with South Africa's whites.

Then there are Winnie's dubious deals. After she announced that the A.N.C. Women's League, which she heads, was going into a tourism venture with actor Omar Sharif, 11 of the league's 25 executive-committee members resigned. Charging her with ``undemocratic behavior,'' they said she had defied the committee's veto on the deal to form Road to Freedom Tours. Her colleagues had already been upset that she had used her official position to boost a new entertainment company run by her daughter Zinzi and also by reports of her association with a woman convicted of illegal diamond trading.

Winnie Mandela is not the only A.N.C. official facing accusations of corruption. Allan Boesak, a popular A.N.C. leader, announced last week that he would withdraw his nomination to be South Africa's ambassador to the U.N. in Geneva. He is accused of misusing some $800,000 in foreign contributions to his Foundation for Peace and Justice. He denies any wrongdoing, and earlier, when a team of Johannesburg lawyers investigated and said he had ``enriched himself'' with foreign funds, he accused them of racism. Last week President Mandela accepted his withdrawal tersely, ``with regret.''

In the background are still more bubbling controversies over public money. Investigators are trying to find out what happened to funds missing from a now defunct tourism organization headed by Peter Mokaba, a prominent A.N.C. Member of Parliament. (Mokaba has not been accused of any wrongdoing.) And as much as $40 million in foreign donations may be missing from an association the A.N.C. set up to help former political prisoners. Some of these problems may have been caused simply by poor bookkeeping or inexperienced administrators, but South Africans are still concerned that stories of corruption will jeopardize investment and aid.

No matter how extensive it is, the fraud in the A.N.C. probably falls short of what was accepted under the whites-only government of the National Party. The difference, of course, is that the old regime was an oppressive, racist state that wasn't expected to behave morally. For the new South Africa, expectations are higher.

--Reported by Peter Hawthorne/Cape Town

-QUOTE-

"I would like to apologize for the impression that I sought to condemn the government." --WINNIE MANDELA

With reporting by Peter Hawthorne/Cape Town