It’s Deadlock, Not Democracy : In South Africa, Only the Far Right Gains at the Polls

South African reality is unchanged after recent elections. This remains an embattled land under ultimate threat of a far-rightist takeover or full-scale military rule. This in spite of the local elections on Oct. 26, billed by the government as “broadening democracy.”

Reality seemed ominously unchanged to me when, just at the time of the elections, newspapers disclosed that a prominent and highly respected Cape Town lawyer, and his wife and daughter, suffered the humiliation of being stripped and body-searched by police before attending a lawful anti-government rally. They are black. Exactly how this can win the black hearts and minds so fervently wooed by President Pieter W. Botha is not clear.

More recently the government’s suspension for a month of the best-known anti-apartheid newspaper, the Weekly Mail, confirms a determination to govern by repression. Restrictions on four other anti-apartheid organizations, bringing to 23 the number restricted so far this year, remove any doubt.

Even the halting, and welcome, progress that has been made in recent months over peace in Angola and independence in Namibia, and constructive talks between Botha and the leaders of some black African states, are extraterritorial in their main effect, and do not change domestic reality.

A post-election reality is the growing influence of the far right--namely, the Conservative Party. The elections gave the party solid support in rural and some industrial areas of the dominant province, the Transvaal. Although the party did not gain as much support as it had hoped for, or enough to ensure power in the next election for Parliament, it can slip a tight lasso round the government’s modest intentions to reform racial domination. Even if its potential following among the ruling whites is under 40%, as some suggest, the Conservative Party is more than a nuisance factor. It can sow the seeds of intra-white conflict, adding yet more tension to the South African scene.

The elections to “broaden democracy” were held in an atmosphere of repression and denial of free expression. The country is under a harsh state of emergency. Bannings, detentions and prohibitions prevented the black anti-apartheid cause from being effectively aired. Censorship has kept the public largely ignorant of what is going on. The black turnout was small. The election was for racially separate local councils--a far cry from the ideal of an integrated Parliament. It was a criminal offense to call for a boycott of the election.

The overwhelming reality is that the same old deadlock--white control and black resistance--continues. Only a sea-change in the ruling whites’ attitudes, or some unexpected event of seismic proportions, can budge it. The deadlock feeds both white and black militancy. Violence is the beneficiary.

The elections were a test of the government’s modest racial-reform program and of the anti-apartheid opposition’s (illegal) call for a boycott by black voters. Both claimed success. The government hailed the black voter turnout as a victory for moderation over extremism. Though 23% of the registered blacks voted, critics say that this was little more than 1% of the total black population, because few were registered in the first place.

Clearly the Botha reform program remains dogged by attacks from the right and yet fails to gain mass black support --little comfort either way. There was certainly no government breakthrough against its sworn enemy, the underground black nationalist cause.

Botha managed to retain a firm grip on provinces other than the Transvaal, and he stands strong in some key cities. He will be under renewed diplomatic and business pressure to abandon many rural areas to the right wing as a lost cause and to run South Africa on a bold “liberalization” program, drawing his strength from the cities. Yet I doubt that he would risk the further splitting of Afrikanerdom that this would entail. Instinctively, he would rather heal the rift. He has always been conservative and an Afrikaner party loyalist.

The dilemma--every time he makes necessary overtures to blacks he risks losing support to his right wing--could turn him to impulsive remedies. One would be resigning and leaving things to his successor. The other would be to turn South Africa totally over to the military forces and dispense with elections, thereby rendering the Conservative Party irrelevant. Already the military exercises more influence over South Africa and its overseas diplomacy than is healthy. It has itchy fingers for government.

The first prize, in the Botha government’s view, would be if it could persuade the world that it has “legitimacy” in both white and black communities. There would be some power-sharing between white and black at executive level, but under ultimate white control. It could to a degree outbid the African National Congress and combat world hostility and sanctions. The deadlock could ease.

Yet until the government lifts the state of emergency, releases political prisoners like Nelson Mandela, allows exiles to return under amnesty and permits free expression and free elections for all South Africans voting together, it will persuade only itself.