Political Reforms Not Abandoned, Campaigner Botha Says

President Pieter W. Botha, campaigning at a rally here Wednesday on behalf of his embattled National Party in forthcoming parliamentary elections, rejected criticism that his government has abandoned political reforms in order to protect the privileged position of South Africa’s white minority.

The party’s commitment to reform remains strong, he declared, and it is now ready to open negotiations with black leaders on the crucial issue of “political power-sharing” in a new constitutional system for the country.

But Botha failed, as he has before, to provide details of further Nationalist plans for reform, saying that this would prejudice the eventual negotiations.

What he asked for instead was a “trust us” mandate in the May 6, whites-only elections to proceed with step-by-step reforms that he promised would give the country’s black majority “the political rights due them” without bringing “black domination” or putting “a Marxist power clique” into office.

“For South Africa to tackle the onslaught against us in an organized fashion, the National Party is asking for your vote,” Botha said, making it clear that he also wants an endorsement of the tough measures his government has taken to curb civil unrest.

Botha, attempting to stem the defections of disenchanted Nationalists to the camps of three popular independents and the Progressive Federal Party, accused his critics of being duped by the outlawed African National Congress and South African Communist Party and unwittingly aiding ANC attempts to divide the ruling white minority, when unity is needed to “turn back this Communist onslaught against us.”

“It’s easy for people to shout about reform, but it’s another thing to deal with the realities of this country,” he told a political rally in this university town, the seat of the revolt against his leadership of the National Party.

“But despite our problems with security, with the economy and with international sanctions against us, we are busy with a spirit of renewal. . . . Liberals always scream and denounce, but they can never build.”

Botha was enthusiastically applauded by most of the capacity audience of 1,800 in the Stellenbosch town hall, but he was heckled intermittently through his 90-minute speech and drew largely hostile questions from young people in the audience afterward.

The two Nationalist candidates in Stellenbosch, J. Christiaan Heunis, the minister of constitutional development and planning, and Piet Marais, a member of the party’s liberal wing, are both facing strong challenges from independents, and even National Party sources concede that they could be defeated.