Botha Asks Mandate in Today’s S. Africa Vote

Most of South Africa’s 3 million white voters will go to the polls today in an election whose outcome--a victory by President Pieter W. Botha’s ruling National Party--has been known from the outset.

But the size and character of the Nationalist victory will have a profound impact on the country’s future, politicians from all parties have said, and this whites-only election has been hotly, often bitterly contested by the government’s opponents on both the right and left.

The Nationalists said Tuesday that they are confident of a big victory--both a larger share of the vote and more seats in Parliament--that will prove that they have the confidence of the country’s white minority and a mandate to proceed with Botha’s step-by-step reforms.

While the Nationalists’ original pitch--a simple “Trust us”--inspired few voters, Botha’s fiery warnings about the danger of a Communist-led revolution installing a black majority government here dominated the closing phase of the campaign. And the warnings may have brought back what party officials called “the waverers and the doubters,” who were on the verge of deserting the Nationalists or simply staying home today.

Nationalists May Gain

If Botha’s hard-charging conclusion to the campaign succeeds, the Nationalists will probably hold most of their 127 seats and could add several, according to political commentators. They would continue their control of the 178-member House of Assembly, the white chamber in the racially segregated tricameral Parliament.

But the winning margins of many, if not most, National Party candidates will probably be reduced, these commentators predict, and at least half a dozen Cabinet ministers and their deputies have battled to keep their seats in the face of challenges from either the left or the far right. The party itself is unlikely to get the same 57% of the total votes cast that it won in the last elections in 1981.

South African law prohibits opinion polls in the last weeks of an election campaign, and thus predictions are largely the guesswork of political analysts. They cautioned that perhaps 20% of the electorate has remained undecided and that a further 20% could not be traced by party canvassers.

The National Party, using all the political muscle and wiles that have kept it in power since 1948, has campaigned hard for a sweeping victory, arguing that the government needs a vote of confidence to continue its gradual reforms in the face of right-wing opposition and to demonstrate to blacks that its strength is undiminished.

The National Party pledged to use its new mandate, however qualified, to press its efforts to bring blacks into the government and to develop a new political system, only vaguely outlined during the campaign, aimed at “power-sharing” by the country’s racial and ethnic groups.

The party would then seek a further mandate in full parliamentary elections scheduled for 1989 and eventually present a new constitution to the country in a referendum, perhaps in four years’ time, that would finally end apartheid.

“The time has come to consult the white electorate about its views on how we should proceed with peaceful reform,” Botha said in a pamphlet addressed to “fellow South Africans” that was distributed in many black townships Tuesday.

The election is important to blacks as well as whites, Botha asserted, because “it is about the future, your future and my future, but most important of all, it is about the future of our children. It is about negotiation, power-sharing, democracy and peace.

“The stronger the mandate I get (from white voters), the better the prospects for peace, progress and stability in South Africa,” Botha continued. “It will enable me to continue the process of peaceful reform in order to build a better South Africa for all our people.”

Nevertheless, throughout the campaign Botha has strongly reaffirmed his opposition to majority rule, declaring that any system of one person, one vote would lead to “black domination” regardless of its safeguards for whites. He also pledged to continue racial segregation in residential areas, schools and some other public facilities.

To the left of the Nationalists, the Progressive Federal and the small New Republic parties and three independents, Nationalist rebels who broke with Botha over the pace of reform, have scaled back their early hopes of winning 40 to 45 of the constituencies at stake when confronted by the massive National Party political machine. They now expect to add about five or six seats to the 32 they held before.

But this “Reform Alliance,” particularly the independents, has captured the imagination of many young voters disenchanted with the Nationalists, and political commentators believe they will get more than the 27% of the vote they received in 1981, cutting into the Nationalist margins and making many races quite close.

Election officials said they expect results from most urban constituencies late tonight but that results from the sparsely populated rural districts, where tight contests are likely between Nationalists and Conservatives, are likely only Thursday afternoon.