S. Africa Parliament Vote Scheduled for Sept. 6

President Pieter W. Botha said Wednesday that a general election will be held Sept. 6. He is expected to retire shortly afterward.

The election will be the first in which white, mixed-race and Asian voters cast ballots on the same day for Parliament’s three segregated chambers.

South Africa’s black majority has no vote in national affairs and no representation in Parliament.

September marks the end of the five-year term for the Asian and mixed-race chambers, which were established in 1984 after widely boycotted elections for voters of those racial groups.

The most recent white general election was in 1987.

Botha’s National Party is heavily favored to retain its overwhelming majority in the dominant white chamber, where it now holds 130 of the 178 seats.

Botha, 73, last month announced his intention to retire after the elections, although he did not set a date for the balloting at that time. He has headed the government since 1978.

The new president is expected to be the national education minister, Frederik W. de Klerk, 53, who succeeded Botha as National Party leader on Feb. 2. Many Nationalists view De Klerk as more flexible than Botha and more capable of breaking the country’s black-white political stalemate.

While the National Party will seek to retain its majority, the extreme-right Conservative Party and the anti-apartheid Democratic Party will be vying to be the largest opposition faction.

The Conservatives, with 23 seats, currently have a three-seat edge over the Democratic Party.