Mr Vorster now too Left-wing for party?

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32715, 18 September 1971, Page 24

Mr Vorster now too Left-wing for party?

(By

DAN

van der VAT of "The Times." through N.Z.P.A.)

LONDON, Sept. 17. A man who started his political career as an independent candidate because he was thought too Right-wing for his party celebrated his fifth anniversary as Prime Minister of South Africa on Sunday last. It is something more than merely ironic that the only threat which exists to the continuation in office of Mr John Vorster for another five years is the fact that he might now prove too leftwing for the majority of the Nationalist Party. The omens when Mr Vorster assumed office five years ago were decidedly poor. His predecessor, Dr Verwoerd, had been murdered in his Parliamentary seat, and the Afrikaner nation, shaken to its foundations, turned to the man who had made his reputation, under Dr Verwoerd, as the “iron man” Minister of Justice and the hammer of the dissidents. To follow Dr Verwoerd, who was regarded by his admirers as a visionary and by his enemies as a doctrinaire fanatic—and accepted by

both as the most remarkable . Prime Minister ever seen in * South Africa—could not have t been easy. Nor has Mr Vor- > ster, who carries the extra t" burden of being one of the world’s most execrated men, ’ had a particularly easy pas- ? sage. ; His tenure of office has i been characterised by two aims which he has been pursuing with only limited suecess. „ The first is “national unity” g by which is meant the long r overdue—and still unrealised » —understanding between e Afrikaners and English-speak- . ing South Africans. It is j presumably for this reason that the man christened Balt- . hazar Johannes Vorster likes s to be known as John. s Dr Verwoerd made a temI, porary impression on this s great chasm of distrust by e winning, in 1966, just before i his death, such a landslide 8 electoral victory that the - English-speakers must have , come over to the Nationalist r Party in thousands. But in r 1970, Mr Vorster, in spite of beating the “national unity” , drum throughout the election ■ campaign, lost this ground i and became the first Nations alist Prime Minister to ’ emerge from an election with ’ fewer seats than he had when he went into it. Mr Vorster’s second aim is summed up in the now rather tired word "dialogue”, the diplomatic offensive to ease

jtic offensive to ease [the external pressure on 'South Africa by establishing relations with Black Africa.

To prove that his offer to talk on equal tenns is genuine, Mr Vorster rolled out the red carpet last month for President Banda of Malawi, but because, among other things, this led him to sit between two black women at a banquet, Mr Vorster is threatened with a powerful black-lash from the growing Right wing, the Verkrampte (hard line) element of the Nationalist Party. His only protection at the moment is that there is no rival strong enough or inspiring enough at present to oust him.

Mr Vorster is presiding over the Nationalist Party at a time when, after 23 years in power, it has accepted the idea that the battle of Afrikaner nationalism has ben won and, therefore, that the cry of nationalism is no longer enough to hold it together.

There is now agreement among all white political parties that the solution to the racial problem is the division of the national territory between the whites and their Coloured (mixed race) and 'lndian satellites on the one'

i hand, and the African maiori ity on the other. > In the last few months, both the United Party and i the liberally inclined Proi gressive Party, have accep- , ted that the Nationalist “Bantustan” policy—giving the Africans independence in their own tribal reserves—is J now a fact of life which there is no longer any point in ’ opposing. This is a considerable victory for Mr Vorster, , and also marks the point of no return for apartheid. For the first time in South African history, the whites, led by Mr Vorster, have ceased merely to take things away from the blacks and have begun, however hesitantly. to give them something back. It is surely extraordinary that a man like Mr Vorster —for whom the word “liberal” is not merely inaccurate but a positive insult, and who remains as willing as ever to impose on others what he himself endured in detention without trial (for supporting the Nazi cause during the war)—is the first Prime Minister of South Africa who intends genuinely however cautious he may be, to give the black man a stake, albeit a small one, ir real power in South Africa.