SOUTH AFRICA’S POLITICS PARLIAMENT IS GIVING SIGNS OF RENEWED LIFE

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 31935, 12 March 1969, Page 12

SOUTH AFRICA’S POLITICS PARLIAMENT IS GIVING SIGNS OF RENEWED LIFE

(By

JOHN MILLER,

writing to the “Daily Telegraph”, London, from Cape Town)

(Reprinted from the “Daily Telegraph” by arrangement) After years of lethargy, largely prompted by the eternal futile debate on apartheid and the Nationalist Party’s entrenched position, South Africa’s Parliament is showing signs of life.

A few weeks ago, Mr Harry Lewis, a United Party Opposition M.P., voted against the Government in the noconfidence debate: a few days later he crossed the floor of the House to join the Nationalists. Mr Lewis, who is 51, was always regarded as a man of “liberal” United Party views. He bad harried the Nationalists for many years for being “political and social barbarians.” He was a United Party spokesman on race classification, which he abhorred. But he announced, when he crossed the floor, that he taken his decision because Mr Vorster, the Prime Minister, had shown that the apartheid road was the only one for South Africa to follow. ( Insecurity Reflected The defection of Mr Lewis is important because it reflects the ideological insecurity of the United Party after 21 years in opposition. Since 1948, when the Nationalists “got their country back at last,” the United Party has suffered a series of humiliating political defeats.

The United Party, in fact, has soldiered on rather proud of its gentlemanly. Westminsterish approach to politics. Its party caucus has regularly sanctioned this tactic as the only way to subvert the Nationalists. That this has turned out to be wishful thinking is shown by the United Party record. Instead of subverting the Nationalists, winning them over by reason and logic, it has, in turn, been subverted. The first to go—in 1954 were the Right-wingers of the party. Five years later came a Left-wing walk-out when the Progressive Party was formed, only to be eliminated at the next election. Since it lost power, the United Party has also lost some two dozen members. Substantial Poll But of late the party had appeared to have got over these body blows. In the 1966 election, although it returned only 38 members, it polled some 42 per cent of the votes. It had detected (or at least thought it had) a significant increase in public interest in its policies as an alternative to the Government’s. It seized eagerly on the new Parliamentary session as an opportunity to convince the electorate that separate development was a rainbow, and the Bantu homelands nothing but dreamlands. Sir de Villiers Graaff, impeccably polite party leader, had also planned to make political hay of the simmering clash between the “Verligte” Nationalists leadership and its ultra-conservative “Verkrampte" Right wing.

Instead, Mr Lewis walked out on his party, into the arms of Mr Vorster, and neatly tossed United Party policies into the frying pan, if not into the melting pot. The defection has been construed by many middle-of-the-road South Africans as proof that the Prime Minister’s “white unity” policy had something in it. Minority Base As a party speaking and thinking for "English” South Africans in the cities, the United Party has had to accept the basic fact of the country’s political life. This is that the English-speakers are in a minority. Unless it wins Afrikaaner allies, or the Nationalist party tears itself apart in the “VerligteVerkrampte” clash the United Party will never move over to sit on the Government benches.

The trouble with the United Party is its image. The electorate simply cannot see that its policies are convincingly different from the Government’s. This, of course, is vehemenUy denied by party spokesmen. It is perfectly true that in his noconfidence speech Sir de Villiers Graaff hammered the Government for the “failure” of apartheid and spread statistics around like confetti to prove his point. The United Party, in fact, differs from the “Nats” on many issues, but its answer to the country’s complex colour problem is race federation. At its simplest this means a federal system under which each of the population groups in South Africa would be self-governing, and yet also represented in the central Parliament. Apartheid, of course, provides for independent African States with their own parliament.

In an effort to allay White South Africans’ fears of an eventual sell-out to the Africans, the United Party heavily underlines the point that white leadership will be retained. It goes further: the African representative in Parliament will be white. Party’s Dilemma The dilemma of the party policy-makers is that they know that this formula smacks of a kind of choco-late-coated “Baasskap” (white bossdom) which is unlikely to satisfy either world opinion or the non-whitcs or, for different reasons, the average Afrikaner. Ironically the defection of Mr Lewis might just possibly prove to be a blessing for South African politics as Parliament moves slowly but surely along the road to becoming a one-party debating chamber. Mr Vorster’s promptness in embracing Mr Lewis could spark a revolt of the “Verkramptes.” For this shadowy group opposes Mr Vorster for allegedly “watering down” Nationalism under the banner of white unity.

South African politics have known some unexpected developments and there have been some remarkable alliances. The United Party today is desperately closing its ranks. It has left itself wide open to the charge of political bankruptcy and it cannot be ruled out that the party’s worn fabric will crumble. If this happens—and the 1971 election could be the crunch—the Nationalists will find themselves having tn take into their fold large numbers of conservative English-speakers. This is When the “Verkramptes" can be expected to show their hand in a final attempt to protect the “laager.”