‘I’m Sitting on Wire,’ Says Middle-Class Voter

Every night this month, Henoch and Thilana Kruger have watched the television news from the comfort of their middle-class home, wrestling with their consciences and their future.

“Now is the time to make a decision,” said Henoch Kruger, a 35-year-old banker. “But I’m sitting on the wire here. I cannot decide which way to go.”

The Krugers, parents of two youngsters with a third child due next month, are typical of the vast numbers of whites in South Africa who remain undecided as they prepare to go to the polls next week to deliver a final verdict on President Frederik W. De Klerk’s reforms.

De Klerk and the country’s business community are calling for a “yes” vote to continue negotiations with the black majority. The country’s right-wing white leaders want a “no” vote to stop De Klerk from handing over power to a black government. Each contends that the alternative will be chaos.

More than 40% of the country’s 3.2 million eligible white voters remain undecided, according to the latest opinion polls. And it is on those voters that the referendum will turn.

The Citizen newspaper, which is urging a “yes” vote, says the referendum has left many whites feeling they are in a no-win situation.

“People are saying there will be sanctions and civil war if the ‘noes’ win,” the Citizen said in a recent editorial. “On the other hand, the prospect of having the ANC-SACP (African National Congress and South African Communist Party) in control of the country gives them the heebie-jeebies.”

The Krugers are plainly worried.

For one thing, times are tough financially, even in their quiet white suburb near Johannesburg. And they worry that attempts to improve the lot of the black majority will mean more taxes and more economic hardship for whites.

The Krugers also worry about their children’s education. Their 9-year-old son and 7-year-old daughter attend an Afrikaans-language public school. But the government is forcing the school to give up much of its public funding and to reach into parents’ pockets or face certain integration.

“Our country is really at a crucial point with this referendum,” said Henoch Kruger. He doesn’t like De Klerk’s reform program, but he is equally unhappy with the policies of the right-wing Conservative Party.

“I really believe there are a lot of things we should be doing for our black population,” Kruger said. “But I would like to see De Klerk go a bit slower. Reform is like an avalanche. The thing is snowballing all the time, and I don’t know whether they can control the speed and direction of that avalanche.”

Yet Kruger thinks the Conservatives offer no realistic alternative. “If I vote for the Conservatives, it would really be a vote of protest,” he said.