unitex@rubbs.fidonet.org (unitex) (09/17/89)
SOUTH AFRICA: Minority Elections Confirm Move Away From the Right
Johannesburg, September 7, 1989 (AIA/Gavin Evans) -- South
Africa's ruling National Party (NP) suffered major setbacks
in yesterday's general election, losing seats to the left
and right.
In its worst election performance in more than 30 years, the
NP's overall majority was slashed by 30 seats, putting the
combined conservative and liberal opposition just 10 seats
short of achieving a "hung parliament" in the 166-seat white
House of Assembly.
Meanwhile, elections in the so-called Coloured (mixed race)
House of Representatives and Indian House of Delegates were
marked by a massive boycott in which over three quarters of
potential voters stayed away from the polls.
The successful Indian community stay-away was helped by a
letter from Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, dated
September 3, calling for a boycott of the elctions.
The Pretoria government hoped its new approach of allowing
"special votes" up to six weeks before polling day would
remove the public stigma in the black communities of being
seen at the ballot box. As it turned out, over 80 percent of
all Coloured and Indian votes cast were "special votes",
but this was only enough to ensure a poll of under 25
percent.
The six-week election run-up was dominated by the campaign of
the defiance of anti-apartheid laws, led by the Mass
Democratic Movement (MDM) a loose, non-racial alliance of
anti-apartheid groups.
It has been reported that at least 22 people in Cape Town
were killed in election day conflicts between police and
protesters.
A frightened National Party used these protests as the main
stick to beat the liberal Democratic Party (DP), which was
accused of being a close ally of the MDM, and by
association, of the banned African National Congress (ANC)
- even though neither the MDM nor the ANC had endorsed the
DP's campaign in any way.
This might have saved the NP a few seats, but when the votes
were counted the DP had 33 seats - five more than expected
and 13 more than their pre-election tally.
The prime target of the anti-MDM thrust was DP co-leader
Wynand Malan, who was pilloried for being a leftwinger and
for his frequent meetings with ANC and MDM leaders.
The NP put up its former Canadian ambassador Glenn Babb in
Malan's Randburg seat, and in the most high profile and
pricey election race outspent the opposition by a ratio of
5:1. But Malan defied the odds and romped home with an easy
1,800 vote majority.
The "Canadian factor" was also present in the Bezuidenhout
seat, where NP MP Sam Bloomberg lost his seat to the DP's
Geoff Engel after it was revealed Bloomberg had planned to
emigrate to Canada two years ago.
Commenting on the DP's election performance, co-leader Dennis
Worrall said he was "very happy with the results which were
much better than most expected.
"The National Party now has little option but to embark on
major reforms and to enter a process of negotiations".
The ultra-right Conservative Party did worse than many
commentators expected, coming in with 39 seats - 17 more
than its previous total, but more than 20 less than it had
predicted.
At least 10 seats, however, were lost by the CP to the Nats
by margins of under 100 votes and the NP's vote tally was
more impressive than its vote total.
CP representative Clive Derby-Lewis said their campaign had
been "hard hit by the Nat media onslaught and their
manipulation of state-owned television", but added they were
pleased with their gains in the Cape and Natal provinces.
Final figures indicate the NP won under 50 percent of the
total vote for the first time in 30 years. But the winner-
take-all system assured them of an overall parliamentary
majority. With a swing of a further two percent there would
have been a hung parliament with no party winning an overall
majority.
NP Information officer Piet Coetzer said their campaign had
been spurred on by "a lucky bounce of the ball", when party
leader F W de Klerk ousted P W Botha to become acting state
president.
This enabled De Klerk to emerge from the shadows and assume
the mantle of an international statesman.
"This, more than anything else, saved the NP from a hung
Parliament", said Mark Phillips, research officer at the
University of the Witwatersrand's Centre for Policy Studies.
"In particular the DP were hurt by the `give the new boy a
chance' attitude of many prospective voters".
De Klerk said yesterday the results suggested a "mandate for
reform", but has frequently cautioned against raising
expectations of "dramatic changes".
MDM leader Murphy Morobe said the election result had shown
that "the Nats have no ground for using right-wing threats
as an excuse for refusing to remove the obstacles to
negotiation".
He said the coloured and Indian election boycott and the
MDM's defiance campaign had been a "major success" and had
exposed the total illegitimacy of the racist tri-cameral
parliamentary elections".
He pointed out that the NP's vote tally represented "under
five percent of the total adult population of South Africa".
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