SOUTH AFRICA: THE NATIONAL PARTY SPLIT AND RACIAL REFORM

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP83S00855R000200070002-5
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: C
• Document Page Count: 19
• Document Creation Date: December 21, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 21, 2008
• Sequence Number: 2
• Publication Date: November 1, 1982
• Content Type: REPORT

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Directorate of Confidential
Intelligence
South Africa:
The National Party Split
and Racial Reform
State Dept. review completed
Confidential
ALA 82-10/50
November 1982
Copy 2 C 5
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Directorate of Confidential
Intelligence
South Africa:
The National Party Split
and Racial Reform
Confidential
ALA 82-10150
November 1982
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South Africa:
The National Party Split
and Racial Reform F
Key Judgments We believe that in the short term the net effect of the March split in the
information available ruling National Party of South Africa will be to impel Prime Minister P.
as of 9 November 1982 W. Botha to push through his reform program granting limited political
was used in this report.
rights to South Africans of mixed race and Asian ancestry. Over the longer
term, however, Botha will have to demonstrate his determination to
maintain white rule in order to placate conservative Afrikaners and prevent
further defections to the right.
When the right wing split off from the National Party in March to form
the Conservative Party of South Africa, it constituted the first Afrikaner
opposition party in Parliament since the Nationalists came to power 34
years ago. The new party took with it those conservative rural and working-
class voters most opposed to racial reform. The split has brought a long-
overdue realignment of Afrikaner politics, which accurately reflects the
social and economic cleavages within the Afrikaner community.
Prime Minister Botha apparently has concluded-accurately in our view-
that the right wing is lost forever and that it would be futile to try to win it
back. We believe this has spurred him to move forward with constitutional
reform that would give some political rights to South Africa's 3.5 million
Coloreds and Asians. We believe that Botha will have a strong executive
presidency and Colored and Asian participation in Parliament in place
before he is required to call a general election in 1986. Thus, for the
foreseeable future, the Conservatives pose no serious threat to the regime,
which still controls 70 percent of Parliament.
Still, the Conservatives can make life more difficult for Botha on a variety
of issues. To preempt Conservative attacks, the Prime Minister has
tightened enforcement of apartheid as it affects blacks and toughened his
rhetoric on Namibia. Botha's tough talk-for which the Conservatives will
hold him politically accountable-will make Pretoria less able to compro-
mise on Namibia settlement issues. In their negotiations with the United
States, we can expect the South Africans to stress the linkage between a
possible antigovernment white backlash against any concessions they are
asked to make on Namibia and the probable loss of domestic support for
reform.
iii Confidential
ALA 82-10150
November 1982
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During the next few years the South African Government will look to the
United States for signs of approval for every step it takes toward reforming
the present system of racial discrimination. The changes proposed by Botha
constitute a revolutionary leap for most Afrikaners, but will appear glacial
to outsiders and to South African blacks who are excluded from the
reform. Because most black African nations believe that the United States
has extensive leverage over the South African Government, they will view
US acceptance of incremental racial reform as approval of the apartheid
system.
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The Basis of National Party Unity, 1948-82
Swing to the Right
3
The 1981 Election
3
The Split
4
The Conservative Party of South Africa
4
The Conservative Platform
5
A Transvaal Base
5
Election Prospects
6
The New Challenges for National Party Politicians
6
Accepting the Loss and Rallying Support
8
Moving Ahead With Constitutional Change
8
Facing a New, Skeptical Constituency
9
Glancing to the Left
Implications for the United States
12
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South Africa:
The National Party Split
and Racial Reform F_
Introduction
South African politics have been dominated during
the past few years by the debate over how best to
protect white political, social, and economic power
against growing nonwhite demands for genuine politi-
cal rights. This debate recently has focused on pro-
posed constitutional changes designed to give the
country's 3.5 million Coloreds and Asians-but not
blacks-a limited political role in the white-controlled
political system. Tensions and anxieties among Afri-
kaners over an uncertain future turned into conflict
within the ruling National Party between those press-
ing for limited reforms and those who reject the
government's cautious steps toward political inclusion
of Coloreds and Asians in the system.
This long-simmering dispute over the pace and direc-
tion of change came to a head early this year. The
National Party's right wing, deciding that it could not
support Prime Minister P. W. Botha's limited plans
for change, split off to form the Conservative Party of
South Africa-the first Afrikaner parliamentary op-
position party in the 34 years since the National Party
came to power. The new party now represents those
conservative rural and working-class Afrikaner voters
who have been most opposed to reform.
This paper discusses the realignment of Afrikaner
politics since the party split and assesses the impact of
the split both on the National Party's continued
political control and on the pace of Botha's constitu-
tional reform program. It also analyzes the prospects
for establishing a multiracial parliamentary system
within the next three years and the implications for
US-South African relations during that period.
The Basis of National Party Unity, 1948-82
Afrikaner unity, once the key to the rapid transforma-
tion of the Afrikaner people from a group of down-
trodden farmers into a modern oligarchy-and the
foundation upon which the National Party rests-has
been dissipating in recent years because of the materi-
al progress and social change it fostered. Urbanization
Figure 1
South Africa: Population Estimate,
September 1982
and growing economic power have disrupted tradi-
tional Afrikaner cohesiveness and given rise to new
special interest groups within the Afrikaner communi-
ty. An urban middle class has emerged, which is more
receptive to the idea that traditional approaches to-
ward racial relations must be modified, if only in the
interests of Afrikaner-or white-survival. According
to South African opinion polls, most of its members
are willing to go along with limited changes to
dampen nonwhite unrest.
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Namibia
Botswana
f Orange
o 1 Free State
South
Atlantic
Ocean
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Zimbabwe
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Confidential
In contrast, the more conservative groups-farmers,
miners, lower level bureaucrats, and blue-collar work-
ers-tend to cling to the narrow ethnic nationalism
and racial prejudice that have served them so well in
gaining and maintaining power. Most are frightened
that any concessions to nonwhites will inevitably lead
to majority rule and the destruction of white civiliza-
tion in South Africa.
The National Party leadership tried to hold these
factionalized 2.7 million white Afrikaans speakers
together under a single political standard in the belief
that a split in the ranks would destroy Afrikaner
political domination of South Africa. It was a difficult
and time-consuming task, diverting the leadership
from the search for solutions to South Africa's com-
plicated problems. Nationalist leaders spent much of
their time trying to reconcile differing strategies for
maintaining white control while holding in check the
jockeying for party leadership, the regional factional-
ism, and the urban-rural tensions.
The Swing to the Right
P. W. Botha came to power in 1978 as a compromise
candidate in the wake of the worst political scandal in
modern South African history. He inherited a party
already polarized by his predecessor's cautious initia-
tives toward co-opting Coloreds and Asians into the
white system as both potential allies against blacks
and necessary manpower to maintain the present
military and economic establishment.
Botha's initial rhetoric promised an increased tempo
of progressive change. As he moved to consolidate his
power within the party, however, Botha seemed more
concerned with winning the confidence of the party's
ultraconservatives than moving forward with the proc-
ess of change. By 1981 the Prime Minister had
backed off from exhortations that whites must "adapt
or die." His highest priority, instead, became the
retention of conservative support within the National
Party.
The 1981 Election. Seeking a personal mandate to
rule, Botha called an early general election for April
1981. In taking this step, the Prime Minister, in our
view, miscalculated the conservative backlash against
even hints of change, and underestimated growing
rightwing sentiment. To the surprise of most National
Figure 2
Political Party Strength Based on
General Election Vote
1970 74 77 81 25X1
National Party
l-lerstigte Nasionale Party
F__1 New Republic Party (formed in 1977 from the United Party)
Progressive Federal Party
United Party (dissolved in 1977)
Party leaders, the Herstigte Nasionale Party, a tiny
ultraconservative splinter group, captured nearly 15
percent of the total vote, although it won no parlia-
mentary .seats. Many Afrikaners, confused by or
opposed to Botha's plans for limited reform, stayed
away from the polls, according to observers on the
scene. Of those who voted, nearly 30 percent cast their
ballots for the ultraright. The bulk of rightwing
sentiment was in the Transvaal, the largest and most
populous of the four provinces. The Transvaal branch
of the National Party controls nearly half the seats in
Parliament
The National Party, which for more than three
decades has carefully gerrymandered constituency
boundaries to maximum advantage, won 80 percent of
the parliamentary seats, and Botha claimed a personal
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mandate. The Prime Minister, however, is a profes-
sional politician whose entire career has been the
National Party; accordingly, we believe he clearly
understood the electoral signal that the National
Party, at least under his leadership, had lost its most
conservative voters.
The Split. Andries Treurnicht, the spokesman for the
National Party's right wing and the leader of the
Transvaal branch of the party, in our view received
the same message from the 1981 general election. The
vote for the Herstigte Nasionale Party cut heavily
into Treurnicht's conservative following, particularly
among rural and blue-collar workers in the Transvaal.
Many Nationalist politicians almost certainly saw
their political support moving permanently to the far
right and felt that their political futures depended on
their moving to the right in step with their voters. It
was probably their judgment that the only way to woo
their constituencies back into the National Party was
to take a strong stand in opposition to Botha's policies
for change.
According to diplomatic sources, after assessing the
1981 election Treurnicht and some of his close allies
spent several months plotting to build an antireform
and anti-Botha bloc based on the more than 40
conservatives among the National Party's 141 parlia-
mentarians. By the following February Botha learned
of this and provoked a confrontation with Treurnicht
over "power sharing" with Coloreds and Asians.
Treurnicht, admittedly caught by surprise, could only 25X1
muster half his parliamentary following to vote "no
confidence" in the Prime Minister's leadership.
In the weeks that followed, Treurnicht was unable to
gain the initiative in the face of a series of tactical
political moves by the Botha forces, and in the end
could not even maintain control of his party organiza-
tion in the Transvaal. He and 15 fellow Transvaalers,
plus one parliamentarian from the Cape Province,
resigned from the party. They retain their parliamen-
tary seats, however, until the next election, which
must be held by April 1986. Treurnicht later told the
US Ambassador that he had more residual support
within the party. He said he believed he could have
mustered more strength if Botha had not moved so
suddenly, but that lifelong Nationalists did not have
time to make a fundamental decision to leave the
party.
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The Conservative Party of South Africa
The Conservative Party of South Africa was launched
in mid-March. It was quickly joined by the small
National Conservative Party of Connie Mulder, who,
as a Cabinet minister and Treurnicht's predecessor as
head of the Transvaal branch of the National Party,
narrowly lost the premiership to Botha. The Conserv-
atives also got the support of other disaffected veteran
National Party politicians including former Prime
Minister Vorster. They picked up an additional par-
liamentary seat when the leader of the National Party
parliamentary caucus joined them.
The Conservative Party got off to an enthusiastic
start, drawing large crowds of young people, students,
dedicated supporters, and curiosity seekers. Because it
failed to capture the National Party machine in the
Transvaal at the time of the break, it had to start
from scratch in building its base. It began organizing
a network of regional secretariats and local constitu-
ency branches modeled after the National Party's
structure
In trying to publicize its meetings and policies,
however, the Conservative Party has been handi-
capped by an almost total media blackout imposed by
the National Party, which controls television, radio,
and much of the Afrikaans-language press. To help
overcome the lack of press coverage, the party is
giving priority to fundraising for its own newspaper.
The Conservative Platform. The Conservative Party
held its first congress in August, three days after
Prime Minister Botha received the endorsement of a
national congress of National Party members to move
ahead with proposals designed to bring South Africa's
Coloreds and Asians-but not blacks-into new con-
stitutional structures that will give them some limited
political rights. In sharp contrast to Botha's plans to
create a parliament with three ethnically separate
chambers and a mixed-race cabinet, Treurnicht called
for the establishment of separate "heartlands" for
Coloreds and Asians where they would be given
political rights in much the same way as blacks in the
"independent" tribal homelands. The system of resi-
dence permits and immigration controls now used to
limit black migration into the white areas would be
made mandatory for Coloreds and Asians, and would
be used to force them to relocate in the new heart-
lands.
While differing on the treatment of Coloreds and
Asians, the part of the Conservative platform dealing
with blacks remains consistent with most National
Party policies in its calls for quick independence for 25X1
all the tribal homelands and a reversal of the black
population flow into the white area. It deviates from
Nationalist policy by calling for the end of permanent
residence rights for blacks living in the white area.n
Senior National Party officials have criticized the 25X1
Conservative program as naked white supremacy. A
leading Afrikaans newspaper has called it a hopeless
effort to return to the unworkable policies of the past.
Nevertheless, the Conservatives' stand on racial poli-
cy, combined with Treurnicht's speeches portraying 25X1
Botha and the National Party as betrayers of white
civilization, are designed to strike a responsive chord
among the large group of rightwing Afrikaners who
are opposed to change.
25X1
The party has taken a stand on few issues other than
its opposition to reform. It is, however, poised to make
political capital on Namibia. Treurnicht recently told
the US Ambassador that he believed the voters were
concerned about Namibia, which they saw as a testing
ground for political change in South Africa. The
Conservative Party considers the attempt at multira-25X1
cial government in Namibia to be a failure and
believes, correctly in our view, that developments that
adversely affect white interests in the territory would
have a strong emotional impact on South African
A Transvaal Base. The Conservative Party is, at least
initially, a regionally based party. The major part of
its support and almost all its organization is in the
Transvaal. This is the largest and most economically
important of South Africa's four provinces, containing
both modern urban industrial areas and rich farm-
lands. More than half of the 2.7 million Afrikaners
live in the Transvaal. It is therefore understandable
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that the Conservatives are concentrating their princi-
pal efforts in the farming, mining, and blue-collar
areas of northern Transvaal, where opposition to
Botha's racial reform policies is greatest. According to
the US Embassy, the Conservatives have also gained
some following among conservative Afrikaner farmers
in the northern parts of the Cape and Natal
Provinces.
Treurnicht is trying to capitalize in particular on the
opposition of Transvaal Afrikaners to bringing non-
white minorities into the government. With the Col-
ored population concentrated in the Cape and the
Asians located primarily in Natal, most Transvaal
Afrikaners have never dealt with these groups and
cannot understand why Botha wants to co-opt them
into the white system. According to public opinion
polls, these whites, many of whom are in the middle or
lower socioeconomic strata, view power sharing with
any nonwhite as the beginning of a process which will
end with a black takeover of South Africa.
Because the group that joined him in breaking away
from the National Party was smaller and the split
point was further to the right than Treurnicht had
hoped, we believe the Conservative Party leader has
been careful to distance his policies from the Her-
stigte Nasionale Party. He hopes to appeal to the
large number of conservatives he believes-correctly
in our judgment-are still inside the National Party.
In our view, he also does not want to be identified
with the extreme right of Afrikaner opinion in order
not to lose support from the Afrikaner cultural insti-
tutions and the churches, neither of which supported
the regressive policies of the Herstigtes. Although less
relevant than in the days when they were the bul-
warks of Afrikaner political unity, these are still
powerful forces at the grass-roots level.
The first public measure of the potential strength of
the Conservative Party came from a regularly sched-
uled political opinion poll published by a major Afri-
kaans-language newspaper in May 1982. The poll
showed that the Conservative Party had the support of
over 18 percent of the white electorate of 2.1 million
potential voters and was favored by nearly 30 percent
of Afrikaner voters. The party's support was highest
among Afrikaners in the Transvaal, where it appealed
to 38 percent of those polled. It did less well among
Afrikaners in the other provinces, drawing 10 percent
in the Cape, 18 percent in the Orange Free State, and
23 percent in Natal.
Many observers of the political scene in South Africa,
including one of the most influential Afrikaner jour-
nalists, believe as we do that this poll measured the
outer limits of potential Conservative support that
exists among Afrikaners. In visits to northern Trans-
vaal in mid-September, US Embassy officers gained
the impression that the trend toward the Conservative
Party there may have begun to peak. National Party
leaders in the area told them that substantial numbers
of defectors to the Conservatives appeared ready to
return to the National Party. Indeed, recent polls
show that white support for the Conservative Party
declined from 18 percent in May to 14 percent in
August.
Election Prospects. The Conservatives received a
swift surge of support in an August provincial byelec-
tion in which the National Party held onto a seat with
fewer votes than the combined right wing. Treurnicht
publicly claimed that he could have won a straight
fight against the National Party and tried to reach an
agreement with the Herstigte Nasionale Party in
order to avoid future three-way contests that split the
rightwing vote. The Herstigtes refused to enter into
any election alliance.
In our view, Conservative fortunes suffered a setback
in early November 1982 when the party failed to win
a parliamentary byelection in a conservative Orange
Free State constituency adjacent to the Transvaal. In
a hotly contested election-in which Botha's constitu-
tional reforms were the sole issue-the National
Party squeaked through with a 10-vote majority
against the combined right wing. At the same time,
the Nationalists made gains in two other constituen-
cies, winning a newly created seat in Walvis Bay, the
South African exclave in Namibia, and increasing its
margin against the English-speaking opposition Pro-
gressive Federal Party in the Cape.
Political analysts in South Africa interpret these
results to mean that Botha has checked, although not
necessarily reversed, the erosion of support to the
right. While the National Party now has increased
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The party was formed in 1969 by a small group of
ultrarightwing members of Parliament who broke
with the National Party in protest over liberalization
of interacial sporting events, detente overtures to
black African states, and government willingness to
accommodate English speakers.
Andries Treurnicht, then editor of a rightwing church
newspaper, had encouraged the break and was ex-
pected to become one of the leaders of the new party.
At the last minute Treurnicht balked at leaving the
National Party. He ran for and won a parliamentary
seat as a National Party candidate in the 1970
election, when all the Herstigte candidates lost their
seats.
The Herstigte Party remained a political fringe group
running candidates in every general election without
winning a parliamentary seat. Its party platform was
the defense of Afrikaner orthordoxy against a Na-
tional Party sellout of white interests.
When Treurnicht and his followers left the National
Party last March to form the Conservative Party,
Jaap Marais, the Herstigte leader, offered his organi
zation as a political base to all the defectors except
Treurnicht, whom he had not forgiven for his duplici-
ty in 1969. The personal animosity of the two right-
wing leaders combined with the extremism of the
Herstigte political positions will impede close cooper-
ation between the two parties.
political momentum, we believe the rightwing parties
still have the potential to win several additional
parliamentary seats if they can bury their differences
and work together.
The New Challenge for National Party Politicians
We believe that at present the political signs from
South Africa indicate that the split among Afrikaners
is causing anxiety and uncertainty among rank-and-
file National Party politicians. Although the party is
in undisputed control of the government, many of its
elected representatives, in our judgment, are unsure of
their hold on their constituencies, particularly in the
more conservative areas where the right wing received
a heavy turnout in the 1981 election. Most of them
are used to winning elections with virtually no opposi-
tion. Those who have had to wage political battles
have done so almost exclusively against English
speakers and the cause of "left-leaning liberalism."
Faced for the first time with the prospect of a political
challenge from the right-and against their own
kin-many are unsure how to run such campaigns.
The South African press reports that the National
Party is running political workshops in key districts.
25X1
All National Party politicians have been accustomed
to receiving automatic support from the Afrikaner
cultural, social, and religious organizations, which
still have a strong influence at the community level.
These institutions are now dividing along lines similar
to those being drawn by the Afrikaner political
parties
The Dutch Reformed Church, for example, published
in its June 1982 newsletter an unprecedented letter
from a group of theologians questioning the scriptural
basis of apartheid. Afrikaans newspapers gave heavy
coverage to this, speculating that the church might be
ready to discuss the need for changes in racial 25X1
attitudes. These hopes were dashed in October, how-
ever, when the church synod took a conservative stand
and refused to debate any of the issues. The meeting
gave a standing ovation to Treurnicht, thus destroying
National Party hopes that the church might play a
positive role in promoting even limited reform.
South African press reports indicate that the Broeder-
bond, the secret cultural organization, has commis-
sioned studies on the effects of racial change on South
Africa's future but otherwise appears to be standing
aside from open politics, at least temporarily. The 25X1
companies that control the Afrikaans-language news-
papers, however, have become involved. Die Trans-
vaaler, the leading Transvaal daily that has often
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served as the vanguard of new policy pronouncements
for the National Party, has undergone a change of
management that could cast its editorials in more
and his awareness of how little real change Afrikaners
will tolerate has made him cautious in the presenta-
tion of the constitutional changes he intends to make.
conservative terms.
Many politicians will have to explain and defend
.policies for constitutional change and power sharing
about which they themselves are unsure if they expect
to win the loyalties of the institutions they once took
for granted. They will, therefore, look cautiously at
the reform moves they are asked to support and will
be reluctant to approve any changes that could pro-
vide political ammunition to the right wing.
We believe most of the politicians can justify in
principle the extension of controlled political rights to
Coloreds and Asians on the grounds that this has been
approved National Party policy since 1977. They can,
in the short run, fend off Conservative Party criticism
by pointing out that Treurnicht and his followers
acquiesed to this policy while still in the National
Party.
The Prime Minister instructed the President's Coun-
cil-the government-appointed, joint white, Colored,
and Asian deliberating body that has been studying
the new constitutional proposals-to present its pre-
liminary reports to Parliament in May. These reports
contained ideas for a revised parliamentary structure
to include Coloreds and Asians and a long-term plan
to reorganize regional and local government to allow
more political but not necessarily physical integration.
Hoping to project the image of a strong and confident
leader, Botha presented the proposals in July to a joint
congress of the four provincial branches of the Na-
tional Party. At the congress the Prime Minister
received the party's endorsement to move ahead with
plans to install a strong executive president and a
three-chambered parliament for whites, Coloreds, and
Over the longer term, however, National politicians
will face strong resistance from many of their Afri-
kaner constituents, as it becomes apparent that in
order to make a multiracial government workable
some of the more blatant racial discrimination laws
will have to be amended. Many would also have
difficulty justifying to themselves the efficacy of
repealing such laws in the current racially charged
climate, in which the recent church synod upheld the
legislation that prohibits mixed marriages and makes
interracial sexual relations a crime, and in which
Afrikaner students voted against admitting even se-
lected nonwhites to their university.
Accepting the Loss and Rallying Support
The leadership of the National Party, while privately
playing down the seriousness of the open ideological
rift that has cut across the Afrikaner community,
appears, in our view, to have accepted the loss of the
party's right wing as permanent. Botha's way of
publicizing the reform proposals after the formation
of the Conservative Party was that of a leader recon-
ciled to the reality that he cannot woo back the right
wing by stopping the reform process that precipitated
the split. Nonetheless, Botha's political experience
Asians.
Botha then put his program before the individual
annual provincial party congresses, which give the
official stamp of approval to policy. He heard some
grumbling but no real opposition in the three prov-
inces in which he has solid support-the Cape, Natal,
and the Orange Free State. Much to the surprise of
most political observers in South Africa, the Prime
Minister received unanimous approval from the all-
important Transvaal congress. It had been predicted
that he would face such serious opposition to both his
policies and his party leadership at the Transvaal
congress that several more National Party members
of Parliament would defect to the Conservatives.
Moving Ahead With Constitutional Change
Now that he has received party backing, we believe
the Prime Minister intends to push the President's
Council proposals for constitutional reform through
Parliament while he still has firm control. He made
this clear when he announced to the Transvaal con-
gress in September that he would present legislation
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Camera Press Q
F. W. De Klerk, Minister of Interior and leader
of the Transvaal branch of the National Party,
has been a driving force in swinging Transvaal
support behind Prime Minister Botha. De Klerk,
a middle-of-the-road politician who appeals to
both the Afrikaner left and right, has displayed
impressive political organizing ability since he
took over the Transvaal leadership when the
National Party split in February 1982.F-
to the next parliament on the first phase of the new
constitution. He said he expected this phase to be in
place by 1984-two years before he is required to call
the next general election.
Although Botha's speech was short on detail, we
assume he means first to create the executive presi-
dency with its virtually unimpeachable seven-year
term, its powers to initiate legislation, and authority
to appoint and control a mixed-race cabinet that is
independent of Parliament. We believe that Botha
intends to be the first executive president. We also
believe he has a good chance of achieving this within
the next two to three years.
A politically experienced Afrikaner member of the
President's Council recently confirmed to a US offi-
cial that the constitutional bill to establish the execu-
tive presidency and the segregated three-chambered
parliament would be introduced when Parliament
reconvenes next January. He believes it will be passed
before the 1986 elections.
25X1
before the end of the six-month session. He also
expects the new system to be in place by the end of
1984 in order to provide at least a year of experience
Facing a New, Skeptical Constituency. There is,
however, a great deal of hard bargaining and skillful
drafting to be worked out on the new proposals before
they can be acted on. In addition to winning over its
own white voters to amend the Constitution, the
National Party must convince credible leaders from
the Colored and Asian communities to participate in a
parliamentary structure that, it now appears, will be
only nominally multiracial.
Most Colored and Asian politicians have refused so
far to participate in the President's Council on two
main grounds. They have said that they expect the
result to give them little real power and that they are
concerned that no provisions have been made to
include blacks in either the deliberations on constitu-
tional change or in the formal structures of the future.
Recently, however, several Colored leaders, including
the Reverend Allan Hendrickse and David Curry of
the Labor Party, have indicated in private conversa- 25X1
tions with US Embassy officials that they might be
receptive to participating in the new parliament if
some concessions could be worked out.
We believe that these politicians and many other
Coloreds have examined the Conservative Party's 25X1
platform-particularly its regressive policies toward
Coloreds-and realize that the National Party is
probably offering them the best, and indeed the only,
deal they can get. Like politicians elsewhere, they do
not want to miss a chance to participate in the
formation of what might possibly be their political 25X1
base for the future. We anticipate that enough Col-
ored and Asian leaders will use that justification to
jump on the new constitutional bandwagon, thus
enabling Botha to have some multiethnic structure in
We believe, however, that the Colored community is
increasingly divided on the issue of cooperation with
the government and there are forces at work that
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could undermine the success of the new constitution.
There is strong, open opposition against Botha's pro-
grams building up within the Colored branch of the
Dutch Reformed Church, which ministers to 30 per-
cent of the Colored population. Bolstered by the
election of its leading theologian, the Reverend Alan
Boesak, to the presidency of the World Alliance of
Reformed Churches in August, the Colored church
recently declared apartheid a heresy. It also voted to
sever all ties with the Afrikaner main church unless
the two merge on a nonracial basis within the next
four years. Boesak has signaled his intention to lead
the opposition against the present constitutional re-
form plan by stating that, in his judgment, Colored
leaders who participate in the new system will lose all
credibility as representatives of their people.
There is also a generational split in the Colored
community. Student leaders at the major Colored
university are campaigning for total rejection of the
new parliamentary setup on the grounds that it
entrenches white political domination and makes no
provision for the black majority. We expect this
student militancy to increase as issues are aired
during future parliamentary election campaigns; this
could lead to student-led unrest.
Although we anticipate that Botha can put his consti-
tution into place in the short term, we are not
confident that it will be workable over the longer term
unless some meaningful concessions in race relations
are worked out with the Colored and Asian communi-
ties. Previous government attempts at setting up
political institutions for Coloreds and Asians have
failed. Although the nonwhite communities initially
participated in these attempts, their leaders soon
realized the new structures would give them only a
semblance of political rights. The Coloreds and
Asians eventually lapsed into political apathy, causing
the government-sponsored institutions to collapse. We
feel such a scenario could easily be repeated, further
widening the gap between the races in South Africa.
Glancing to the Left. While Botha and the National
Party are warily keeping their eyes on the political
activity on the right, they have not ignored the large
English-speaking vote to the left. The political re-
alignment of the Afrikaners has produced a flurry of
public speculation within South Africa about the
possibility of some political accommodation between
the two opposition parties-the Progressive Federal
Party and the New Republic Party-and the Nation-
al Party. Although the New Republic Party has
recently endorsed the Botha constitution in principle,
we do not consider the English-speaking opposition
parties to be ideologically close enough to the Nation-
al Party, even without its right. wing, to expect any
formal cooperation in the near future. Nor do we
deem that the National Party is so seriously threat-
ened from the right that it would seek to make
common cause with the English speakers. Indeed, a
widely read South African political commentator
noted recently that the Nationalists would feel more
comfortable dealing with Afrikaans-speaking Col-
oreds in Parliament than dealing with the English.
Frederick Van Zyl Slabbert, the leader of the Pro-
gressive Federal Party, recently estimated that the
outside limit of Conservative support is 25 percent
and that the Nationalists were in no immediate
danger from the right. Slabbert told a US Embassy
officer that the Prime Minister could take a large bloc
of votes from the Progressives if he supported a
declaration of intent that blacks were to be included
in South Africa's future. Instead of any coalition with
the left, therefore, we expect Botha to seek opposition
support for his reform programs by appealing to
English speakers to support the National Party at the
polls, as they did in the campaign for white unity in
1977.
Outlook
We believe that the conservative trend in South
African politics that brought on the recent split in the
National Party will, in the short term, spur Botha to
move quickly in implementing his programs for limit-
ed constitutional reforms. The Prime Minister, in our
opinion, realizes that he has permanently lost the
Afrikaner political right and that backing off from
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more centrist-though still strongly conservative-
political party, Botha probably believes that his best
and perhaps only chance for enacting his reform
program is to move ahead while he firmly controls
Parliament. We estimate, therefore, that the Conserv-
ative Party has become a major factor in South
African politics. It has begun to force Botha and the
National Party toward the middle ground of white
politics and to speed up the very process that Conserv-
atives oppose.
In order to prevent any further defections to the right
over the next three years, however, the Prime Minis-
ter will, we believe, have to demonstrate his determi-
nation to maintain white control in order to placate
conservative Afrikaners. The government has already
begun to display a hardened attitude toward blacks in
order to counter Conservative Party criticism of its
policies. While laws that control black migration into
white areas have been slightly relaxed, their enforce-
ment has been tightened. The homes of thousands of
black squatters have recently been destroyed, forcing
black families out of the urban areas and back to the
tribal homelands. New legislation is also being drawn
up to nullify recent court decisions that favor black
residency rights in urban areas. The government is
also soft-pedaling efforts to consolidate the fragment-
ed black tribal areas when white farming areas are
involved.
In our view, the government will continue to tailor
both its short- and long-term economic policies more
to the immediate interests of the whites rather than
the blacks. For instance, we believe that the govern-
ment will continue to concentrate on lowering the
inflation rate because of the adverse effect on white
buying power and ignore the resultant unemployment
among blacks that will stem from tight money poli-
cies. We also expect continued security crackdowns on
the leadership of the nascent black trade union move-
ment in order to prove that they will not be allowed to
pose any political or economic threat to the white
community.
If it appears to Botha in the next two or three years
that the National Party political base is eroding over
lack of confidence in his attempts to allow political
rights for the nonwhite minorities, we believe the
Prime Minister has several options he could use in
preempting the Conservative challenge:
? Rural constituencies in South Africa have about 15
percent fewer people than the urban constituencies.
The Prime Minister has already publicly hinted
that, should he feel under pressure from the right,
he would not hesitate to redistrict these constituen-
cies to cut down the number of potential Conserva-
tive parliamentary seats. 25X1
? The National Party could also broaden its appeal to
the left. For example, the executive president, once
installed, would have the power to pick his own
cabinet. If there were any serious political threat
from the right before the next election, we believe
that the President might offer one or more Cabinet
posts to English speakers-perhaps prominent busi-
nessmen rather than politicians-in order to attract
support from English speakers at the polls.
? If the Nationalists appear to be seriously endan-
gered' by an erosion to the right, a possibility we do
not expect in the near term, we assess that the
Prime Minister could persuade most of the eight
parliamentarians from the New Republic Party and
at least a half dozen of the most conservative 25X1
Progressives to cross over and bolster the National
Party parliamentary strength. There have already
been hints of this. When the battle for control of the
National Party was raging last February and it was
unclear how much support Treurnicht could take
with him, there were rumors inside South Africa
that the New Republic Party leadership, which
supports the Botha reforms, considered, in principle,
a merger with the National Party. Additional ru-
mors at the time suggested that at least five parlia-
mentarians from the Progressive Federal Party
could easily have been persuaded to join the ranks of
the Nationalists. 25X1
With the executive presidency in place before the next
election, as we believe it will be, the National Party
will have a strong leader and political momentum.
25X1
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Under the ground rules for the new parliament,
debate on political issues would then be confined to
closed committee hearings, which cannot be reported
by the press. This would substantially water down the
impact of the opposition parties and make it difficult
for the Conservatives to orchestrate effective opposi-
tion to the government.
Despite these options and other political tools at
Botha's disposal, his government is bound to suffer
occasional setbacks that will be interpreted by some
observers as harbingers of doom for continued Na-
tional Party rule. For example, although we expect a
slight improvement in the economy over the next few
years, another slump in gold prices with its concom-
mitant recessionary effect in South Africa is always a
possibility.' If this were to happen, many lower in-
come Afrikaners still in the National Party could feel
threatened in the job market by Coloreds and Asians
whom they would see as being increasingly treated as
their equals by the government. Their discontent at
such a situation would only benefit the Conservative
Party.
A large rightwing backlash could occur if nonwhite
rioting were to erupt on the scale it did in 1977 and
1978. Such disturbances are always possible in South
Africa, although their timing is difficult to anticipate.
Based on our experience, however, there is no doubt
that the Botha government will continue to use harsh
security measures to clamp down on any signs of
discontent.
Implications for the United States
During the next few years, Botha and the South
African Government will look to the outside world,
particularly the United States, for signs of approval,
in words and deeds, for every step they make toward
reforming the present system of racial discrimination.
Botha will expect that interested US officials will
view the split in the National Party as evidence of a
willingness on the part of National Party leaders to
embark upon a process of reform that-while appear-
ing glacially slow to outsiders and South African
blacks-constitutes a revolutionary leap for most
Afrikaners. As he did during the week the National
Party was splitting, Botha will occasionally ask for
public comment from the United States approving of 25X1
his administration in order to strengthen his position.
US relations with other African states will continue to
be complicated by the slow progress of change in
South Africa. Because most African states believe
that the United States has extensive leverage over the
South African Government, they will view US accept-
ance of incremental racial reform as approval of the
apartheid system.
Of greater immediacy to US interests may be the
impact of the National Party split on the Namibia
settlement process. The new Conservative Party
stands ready to attack any settlement that compro-
mises white interests in the territory. The South
African media, reflecting the impact of the Namibia
issue on domestic politics, have editorialized that the
choices facing Botha are either a new constitution or a
Namibia settlement leading to a government headed
by the South-West Africa People's Organization, but
that the electorate would not accept both. The Prime
Minister has already raised Namibia as a political
issue. To head off Conservative attacks, Botha has
gone out of his way in public to associate the head of
the Conservative Party, a former Cabinet member,
with Pretoria's policy on Namibia.
In recent political speeches, Botha has reiterated the 25X1
unacceptability of a government headed by SWAPO,
a likely result of the negotiated settlement. Pretoria's
tough talk-for which the Conservatives will hold the
government politically accountable-will make Botha
less able to compromise on the crucial issue of Cuban
troop withdrawal from Angola, or eventually to adopt
a UN-backed plan. 25X1
support for reform.
In their negotiations with the United States, we can
therefore expect the South Africans to continue to
stress the linkage between a possible antigovernment
white backlash over any concessions they are asked to
make on Namibia and probable loss of internal
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