From the archives: S. Africa Leader Botha Resigns, Blames Cabinet

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa -- An embittered President Pieter W. Botha, in an unprecedented public fight with his own party leaders, announced his resignation on nationwide television Monday night, ending a tumultuous 11 years of autocratic, combative but reform-minded rule.

The 73-year-old president complained that his authority was being defied by his Cabinet, especially by Education Minister Frederik W. de Klerk, who five months ago was chosen by the ruling National Party to succeed Botha after parliamentary elections, scheduled for Sept. 6.

“It is evident to me that after all these years of my best efforts for the National Party and for the government of this country . . . I am being ignored by ministers serving in my Cabinet,” Botha said, looking gaunt and nervous as he read a prepared speech in the Afrikaans language in his Cape Town office. “I consequently have no choice other than to announce my resignation.”

De Klerk, 53, will be sworn in today as acting president.

The 16-member Cabinet, worried by what some characterized as the president’s increasingly “irrational behavior,” had pledged its support for De Klerk at a closed-door session over the weekend. At a three-hour meeting with Botha on Monday, the ministers unanimously asked him to step down.

The move, coming less than a month before Botha’s planned retirement, was triggered by last week’s announcement of a planned meeting between De Klerk and Zambian President Kenneth D. Kaunda on Aug. 28. Kaunda, patron of the outlawed African National Congress, is a key figure in the white minority-led government’s attempt to end its isolation from its African neighbors.

Botha criticized De Klerk for not consulting with him about the talks, suggesting that De Klerk had violated ministerial protocol, and the president spent most of his 15-minute farewell address airing his side of that disagreement. A meeting with Kaunda before South Africa’s general elections would be “inopportune,” Botha said, adding that he would “not approve a visit to Dr. Kaunda . . . at this stage.”

Contradictory Statements

But Foreign Minister Roelof F. (Pik) Botha, who is not related to the president, said President Botha personally gave them the go-ahead for talks with Kaunda and other African leaders. In an appearance with De Klerk on state-run television after the resignation, Pik Botha described the president’s memory as faulty.

De Klerk’s diplomatic mission to Zambia could improve South Africa’s strained relations with black-ruled Africa--a process begun under Botha.

The president met with four black African leaders last year and was said to be miffed that his efforts to increase contacts with the rest of the continent, boosted by South Africa’s willingness to grant Namibia independence after 75 years of colonial rule, was not sufficiently appreciated by his party.

The resignation followed months of ill feeling between President Botha and De Klerk, beginning in February when the president stepped down as party leader after suffering a mild stroke but expressed his desire to remain as president for another year or longer.

The party caucus then selected De Klerk over several Botha favorites as party leader, further angering the president. A month later, the party nominated De Klerk to succeed Botha and, with the backing of the National Party press, pressured Botha to call an election for September and agree to retire then.

Botha, who once ruled his Cabinet with an iron fist and on occasion reduced Cabinet ministers to tears, was angered by the actions of the party he had served for 50 years. He never publicly congratulated De Klerk, and he refused an invitation in June to attend a farewell dinner in his honor, with De Klerk as host, forcing its cancellation.

Many political analysts believe that Botha’s meeting last month with jailed black nationalist leader Nelson R. Mandela was an attempt to steal the thunder from his successor, who has been hailed internationally as a leader who can restart the apartheid reform process that came to a halt under Botha.

“In the past five months, P. W. Botha has ungraciously done everything he could to hamstring his successor,” Robert Shrire, a professor of political studies at the University of Cape Town, said Monday night. “This shows how even astute leaders like P. W. Botha lose touch with reality. He clearly ought to have retired with honor after he had his stroke.”

‘Yesterday’s Man’

Public pressure was building against Botha in recent days. In an editorial Monday, the Star newspaper described Botha as “the wrecker.” Another newspaper, the government-supporting Citizen, referred to Botha as “totally unpredictable . . . yesterday’s man.” The Star and the Citizen joined other newspapers in the country in urging De Klerk to “be strong” in the showdown with the president.

Botha said the Cabinet ministers had asked that he resign, vacate his official residence and appoint an acting president.

“They told me I could use my health as an excuse,” Botha said. “To this I replied, ‘I am not prepared to leave on a lie.’ ”

He declined to appoint an acting president, but the party caucus selected De Klerk.

De Klerk said he was saddened that Botha had to retire “under such unfortunate circumstances.” He added that the president, during his long career, “dedicated himself to the interests of the country and rendered unselfish service to South Africa.”

The National Party has been campaigning for next month’s elections under the slogan “New Leadership, New Action.”

De Klerk has promised to create “a new South Africa” with limited political rights for blacks at all levels of government. He remains committed to keeping South African society divided into segregated groups, but he has proposed redefining those groups according to such factors as culture, religion and language rather than race.

In the elections, which the disenfranchised black majority must watch from the sidelines, white, Indian and Colored (mixed-race) citizens will vote for members of separate chambers in the tricameral Parliament.

Despite challenges from the right-wing Conservative Party and the liberal Democratic Party, the National Party is virtually assured of winning most of the seats in the white assembly, thereby making De Klerk the new president.