S. African Editor Resigns in Protest : He Charges Botha Is Too Hesitant on Political Reforms

In a further fragmentation of South Africa’s ruling National Party, the editor of the largest Afrikaans newspaper resigned Sunday, saying that he could no longer tolerate what he called the narrow-mindedness and hesitation of the party leadership on the issue of political reform.

Willem de Klerk, editor of the Sunday newspaper Rapport and brother of F. W. de Klerk, the National Party leader in Transvaal province and a member of President Pieter W. Botha’s Cabinet, said the party’s refusal to accept constructive criticism and to tolerate dissent within its ranks had put his journalistic integrity at stake.

“Politicians certainly have the right to differ,” Willem de Klerk declared, “but traditionally an editor has the honor to vacate his seat if his newspaper’s political independence is disputed and obstructed.”

De Klerk’s resignation followed equally embarrassing defections from the National Party by a member of Parliament, the South African ambassador to London, at least 30 academics and dozens of veteran party workers.

Crisis of Confidence

As a result, Botha is now faced with a serious crisis of confidence within the party over what many regard as the slow pace of political reform and his own leadership.

“I believe the National Party must accommodate the movement to the left of it,” De Klerk, 58, said in a television interview here Sunday, “and, if it can, it is best for the country that the party becomes the instrument of change.

“But if the National Party does not succeed in accommodating the feeling of people left of it and making them feel at home in it, then it will lose great support. If the National Party cannot accommodate these other accents, then I personally will not feel at home in the party.”

De Klerk’s resignation as editor of Rapport and his criticism of the party leadership had immediate impact because of his considerable influence as a leading Afrikaner intellectual and as a member of one of the foremost Nationalist families here.

“I still believe the National Party has the opportunity to bring about great reform in this country, but then certain of its policies and its style would have to be steered in a new direction,” De Klerk said.

Increasing Anger Cited

His efforts at Rapport to do this met with increasing anger from the Botha government, De Klerk said.

“I have been told that many of my political insights, accents, arguments and appeals have aroused resistance among Nationalist politicians,” he continued.

“This intolerance and rejection of criticism and investigative journalism and reasonable political reporting inhibits political freedom, integrity, honesty and openness.

“Reform should be based on credibility, objectivity and balance, and the National Party should be promoted as the instrument to bring this about. Rapport has done this so far but clearly has not been heeded.”

F. W. de Klerk, a candidate to succeed Botha as president and party leader in a year or two, immediately attempted to repair the damage to the party done by his brother’s resignation, saying that the criticism was already being exploited by the government’s opponents.

‘Untruthful Image’

“The slanted and untruthful image of a National Party that is backing away from reform is now being coupled to his resignation,” F. W. de Klerk complained in a separate television interview.

The National Party, he continued, is committed to “real, dynamic and orderly reform at all levels of society,” and in politics this means “power-sharing” without “domination by any group over another.”

This National Party political formula, successful among moderate and even liberal whites in recent years, was rejected Sunday by a group of 28 leading academics from Stellenbosch University, which has served as the Nationalists’ think tank on reform in recent years and has long been the principal seat of Afrikaner scholarship.

Warning that the government’s waffling and hesitation on reform were rapidly reducing chances for peaceful change, the scholars, in a reform manifesto, called for “clear and unambiguous statements on intent” on two issues, the ending of apartheid and the sharing of political power.

As an initial step toward resolving the country’s problems, the manifesto said that the government and the National Party should commit themselves to repeal of the remaining laws that classify citizens on the basis of race, that segregate residential areas and public facilities and that establish a political system based on racial separation, including the present Parliament.

Power-Sharing

The second step, the manifesto said, would be a commitment to “share power effectively with blacks” in Parliament and at every level of government. Such power-sharing must provide the country’s black majority with a voice “acceptable to (them) in the decision-making process.”

This is based on the recognition that whites, perhaps sooner than they expect, “will relinquish their exclusive and decisive ability to enforce decisions that have consequences for all of South Africa’s people,” the document said.

But the academics stopped short of suggesting a political system that can accomplish this without frightening conservative whites into undertaking a rebellion of their own. A new constitution can be developed “only as a result of negotiations between the (Pretoria) government and credible, representative leaders of all communities in South Africa,” the group said.

In a major test of Nationalist support against the party’s critics, a public opinion survey conducted for a liberal newspaper here showed that an independent candidate, running on a strong reform platform, was within two points of a Nationalist member of Parliament from the Stellenbosch area.

Close Race in Poll

According to Market Research Africa, 31% of those polled said they would vote for J. Christian Heunis, the minister of constitutional development and planning, in the whites-only parliamentary elections scheduled May 6. But 29% said, after only two weeks of campaigning by Denis E. Worrall, that they would vote for Worrall, who resigned as South Africa’s ambassador to London to run as an independent. More than 35% refused to say whom they supported or said that they had not decided.