De Klerk Will Succeed Ailing Botha ‘if He Wants Job,’ Pretoria Says

Frederik W. de Klerk, the conservative Cabinet minister and new leader of the ruling National Party, is certain to become South Africa’s next president “if he wants the job,” the government’s chief spokesman said Friday.

“There is no question about where the power for choosing the next president will reside. F.W. de Klerk is now the leader of the party,” Information Minister Stoffel van der Merwe said in the government’s first specific comment on the issue of presidential succession.

Van der Merwe, briefing foreign journalists in Cape Town before the opening session of Parliament, also said President Pieter W. Botha, who suffered a mild stroke two weeks ago, is “not currently being consulted on running the day-to-day business of government.”

Botha, 73, resigned his leadership of the party Thursday, giving up a significant portion of the power that he has held in South Africa for the past decade.

Some analysts believe that Botha, by separating the jobs of party and government leadership, was signaling his intention to remain as president at least until his 5-year term expires in September or until the next general election.

Van der Merwe declined to speculate on Botha’s plans but said, “The clear indication is that President Botha is not going to relinquish his office now.”

De Klerk, a leader of the conservative wing of the party, was elected party leader by a 69-61 vote in a party caucus Thursday, defeating Finance Minister Barend du Plessis, considered one of the party’s more liberal members.

Under the South African constitution, presidents are selected by a system effectively controlled by the caucus of the ruling party.

De Klerk, like most of Botha’s Cabinet ministers, has until now remained in the shadow of Botha’s powerful personality. The 52-year-old education minister has not revealed his goals for the country, other than to express his support for Botha’s programs.

But given De Klerk’s relative conservatism, many political analysts believe that the gradual and limited reform program begun under Botha would slow considerably under a De Klerk administration.

Campus Crackdown

De Klerk has cracked down on anti-apartheid protesters at universities by vowing to withdraw government funds from schools that allow demonstrations. He also has been among the more vocal critics of white South Africans who hold talks with the African National Congress, the primary guerrilla group fighting Pretoria’s white minority-led government.

Botha’s absence from the opening of Parliament cast a pall over the usual pageantry of the proceedings, presided over by Acting President Chris Heunis. Although the president’s opening speech has traditionally laid down some of the government’s plans for the year, Heunis delivered a more general address that highlighted the government’s achievements but offered little of its vision for the future of reform.

“One cannot introduce earth-shattering new reform initiatives” with Botha still recovering from his illness, Van der Merwe explained. “But reform is going forward. You can rest assured.”

On his doctors’ orders, Botha was not allowed to help write or review Heunis’ speech.

Heunis did announce that the government has formally withdrawn its own controversial amendment to the Group Areas Act that would have toughened enforcement of the 35-year-old law dividing South Africa into separate living areas by race.

But he reiterated the government’s commitment to racial segregation, saying it will study “other ways and means of guaranteeing (racially separate) community life” for those who want it.

Meanwhile, a government measure to create, for the first time, some residential areas where whites and blacks could live as neighbors has become law. Under the legislation, a “free settlement” board will soon begin studying possible open areas. The government will retain final power to declare an area open, however.

Because of a severe housing shortage for black South Africans, thousands have already moved into areas set aside for whites only.

The government has been under increasing pressure from the far-right Conservative Party to more strictly enforce its residential segregation law as well as its Separate Amenities Act, which Conservative Party members have used in several cities to ban blacks from using public facilities such as parks and meeting halls.