Police Guard Deputy

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31159, 8 September 1966, Page 17

Police Guard Deputy

Police, meanwhile, posted a special guard throughout the night on the block of flats in Cape Town where the finance minister and Acting Prime Minister, Dr. Eben Donges, is staying. Dr. Donges, aged 68, is one of the three men mentioned as possible successor to Dr. Verwoerd. The others are the Transport Minister, Mr Ben

Schoeman and the Justice Minister, Mr John Vorster. It seems likely that Dr. Donges will continue as Acting Prime Minister for the next few weeks until the National Party chooses a new leader —and. automatically, a Prime Minister.

But strains are likely. Beneath the apparent monolithic form of the party always lurks a latent split—between the Cape Nationalists, considered the moderates, and the tougher, more extreme Transvaal Nationalists.

One complicating factor is that there is no-one of comparable stature to Dr. Verwoerd —a situation similar to that existing until Dr. Verwoerd was elected leader in

1958 on the death of the Prime Minister, Mr Johannes Strydom. Dr. Donges was one of the three contestants for the Premiership at that time—the other was Mr Charles Swart, now State President—and observers believe that he may try for the position again until a younger man emerges clearly. Dr. Donges, a leading Cape Town advocate before entering Parliament in 1941, is among the “moderate” Cape group, but as Minister of the Interior he was responsible for the laws setting out the country’s racial classifications.

Mr Schoeman. 61-year-old former railway fireman who joined the National Party

from the Opposition United Party after the Second World War, is regarded as sound and practical but, like Dr. Donges, could be considered a short-term caretaker.

Mr Vorster, aged SQ, strong, stern, fiercely anti-communist and the fountainhead of the country’s security laws, is respected rather than admired and is believed to be an even more extreme protagonist of racial segregation than Dr. Verwoerd.

During the Second World War, both Mr Vorster and Mr Schoeman were strongly opposed to South Africa joining the side of the allies. The assassination of Dr. Verwoerd, the architect of apartheid, will bring no change in South Africa’s stringent racial policies, United Press International reported. The assassination provided an excuse for further clamping down on liberties in South Africa, “The Times” said today.

“Those areas where a measure of freedom still exists—

the courts and the press—will be thrown more on the defensive,” the newspaper said in an editorial. Most of Britain’s national newspapers agreed that the assassination would be followed by further restrictions in South Africa.

(Dr. Verwoerd’s obituary, P 9.)