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• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP86T00589R000100120004-0
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• Document Creation Date: January 12, 2017
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• Sequence Number: 4
• Publication Date: March 1, 1985
• Content Type: REPORT

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Directorate of
Intelligence
South Africa:
The Rightwing Threat
r&
ALA 85-10028
March 1985
COPY 3 7 4
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Directorate of
Intelligence
South Africa:
The Rightwing Threat
the Office of African and Latin American Analysis. It
was coordinated with the Directorate of
Operations.n
This paper was prepared by
on
Comments and queries are welcome and may be
directed to the Chief, Regional Issues Branch, ALA,
Secret
ALA 85-10028
March 1985
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South Africa:
The Rightwing Threat
Key Judgments The right has reemerged over the past three years as a major political force
Information available in South Africa. The rebirth of the right is a potential threat to President
as of 19 February 1985 P. W. Botha's program of gradual, limited racial reform. Over time, the
was used in this report.
right could also pose a real challenge to Botha's National Party (NP)
because the militant nationalism that the right espouses has historically
been the most dynamic political force in Afrikaner society.
According to public opinion polls, the conservative opposition now has the
support of approximately a third of the Afrikaners, which translates
roughly into about a quarter of the white electorate. In the past two years,
the two rightwing opposition parties-the Conservative Party and the
Herstigte Nasionale Party (Restructured National Party)-won approxi-
mately 40 percent of the popular vote in 17 byelections held in Afrikaner
districts. The two parties agreed in June 1984 to work together in future
elections and have already joined forces in seven byelections since then.
While the electoral strength of the right is on the rise among Afrikaners, it
does not now pose a serious challenge to NP rule. This is mainly because of
the party's strength among the white electorate and the political skills of its
leadership, especially of Botha himself. Indeed, the National Party's
growing strength among English-speaking whites has compensated for its
losses among conservative Afrikaners. The right, for its part, suffers from
an underlying rivalry between the leaders of the two rightwing parties, a
lack of funds, and weak support among the English speakers. Moreover, so
long as Botha seems to be able to control the basic process and the general
pace of change, we doubt that the right will be able to broaden its base in
the white community sufficiently to challenge the NP.
Not only has President Botha had to contend with the parties of the right,
he has also had to face the rightwing faction within the National Party,
which is sympathetic with the views of the opposition parties of the right.
Press accounts and US Embassy reporting have identified 25 rightwingers
within the NP's parliamentary caucus of 128, including two senior
ministers. Thus far, the Nationalist rightwing faction has been content to
work within the party to halt or at least slow the pace of reform, mainly be-
cause of the pull of party patronage, discipline, and perquisites.) 25X1
iii Secret
ALA 85-10028
March 1985
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To date, the division in Afrikaner society has served US interests in
southern Africa, in our view, by giving P. W. Botha greater freedom to car-
ry out reforms and regional accommodations that have moved South ,
Africa in the direction of US goals of peaceful change and stability. We be-
lieve Botha's ability to continue his reformist policies probably depends
directly on his continued capability to contain the threat from the right,
both inside and outside the National Party. If-as we expect-the NP
maintains its hold on the Afrikaner middle class and roughly its present
level of support among the English-speaking community, we would expect
P. W. Botha to be able to continue on a reformist course during the next
two to five years.
Should Botha, who is 69, die or suddenly resign, moderate and rightwing
Nationalists would compete for the mantle of party leader. We believe that
the party leadership is most likely to pass to another moderate Nationalist,
which may then lead the NP right wing to bolt the party. The prospects for
a victory by a rightwing Nationalist would, however, improve in a period of
escalating unrest and violence, particularly if a substantial majority of
Afrikaners became convinced that the government's "soft" reformist
policies were responsible for the unrest.
Barring Botha's untimely demise, we regard the ascendancy of the right
wing within the National Party or an outright electoral victory by the
parties of the right as unlikely in the short term but growing in possibility
over the longer term. Either one would lead to greater pressure on the
United States to distance itself from South Africa and increase the
likelihood of conflict between Pretoria and its neighbors, which, as a result,
could revive or create opportunities for a more active Soviet role in
southern Africa.
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Secret
Key Judgments
Political Organization
3
Limits to Rightwing Influence
5
The National Party and the Right
6
Latent Support for the Right Within the NP
6
Botha's Strengths and Strategies
9
Outlook and Ramifications for US Policy
10
The Most Likely Prospect: The Right Remains Weak
10
Alternative Scenario: A Threat From the Right
11
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Figure 1
South Africa's Rightwing Strongholds
A n g o l a
White Parliament Composition
National Party
128
Progressive Federal Party
27
Conservative Party
18
New Republic Party
5
Namibia
*Windhoek
Port Elizabeth(
Conservative Party stronghold
Boundary representation is
not necessarily authoritative.
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Botswana
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Secret
South Africa:
The Rightwing Threat
The right in South African white politics, long inef-
fectually if vocally critical of the ruling National
Party (NP), has emerged over the past three years as a
major political force representing Afrikaners opposed
to President Pieter W. Botha's program of gradual
and limited racial reform. The rebirth of the right is a
potential threat to the NP because militant national-
ism has historically been the most dynamic political
force in Afrikaner society. In critical debates among
Afrikaners over the past two centuries, extremists
have usually emerged victorious.'
.Although the right does not now pose an electoral
threat to the NP, its growing inroads in Afrikaner
circles have forced the ruling party to try to broaden
its appeal among the country's English-speaking
whites. Should the NP continue to lose ground in the
Afrikaner community and fail to rally sufficient
support from the English speakers, the NP leadership
might feel compelled to back away from Botha's
program of domestic reform and regional detente in
order to stop the hemorrhaging of Afrikaner support.
The key to the National Party's hold on the govern-
ment since it first came to power in 1948 has been its
success in first molding and then in maintaining the
unity of Afrikaner society as a political force. The
political consensus among Afrikaners began to break
down, however, in the aftermath of the Soweto riots of
1976, which ignited a debate over apartheid-the
NP's fundamental policy of racial separation-that
divided Afrikaners into two rival schools of thought,
according to academic studies and State Department
reporting:
? Conservative Afrikaners, popularly labelled
verkramptes (literally, cramped ones), opposed any
tinkering with apartheid, contending that even mi-
nor changes would undermine the entire system.
? The more moderate members of the Afrikaner elite,
called verligtes (enlightened ones), argued that do-
mestic and international pressures mandated limited
increases in economic and social benefits for the
country's black majority and a circumscribed politi-
cal role for the mixed race "Colored" and to
"Asians," which in South Africa means Indians.
Reform, they maintained, was the only way to
guarantee continued white control and preservation
of the Afrikaner identity.
While verligte Nationalists headed by then Prime
Minister P. W. Botha have led the National Party
since 1978, the verkrampte faction was able to block
many reform initiatives until 1982 by capitalizing on
the fear of a party split. Tension within the party
came to a head in late February 1982, when Andries
Treurnicht, the leader of the verkrampte faction in
the Cabinet, challenged the Prime Minister publicly
over the issue of "power sharing." The party's expul-
sion of Treurnicht and 15 other Nationalist members
of Parliament in March 1982 formalized the fissure in
Afrikaner politics.
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The split in the NP set in train divisions in Afrikaner
social, cultural, educational, and religious organiza-
tions that had for decades been the backbone of
Nationalist support. The loss since 1983 of between
1,500 and 2,500 of the estimated 14,000 members has
left the semisecret Afrikaner Broederbond (Afrikaner
Brotherhood) "unable to foster the National Party's
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Afrikaner Nationalism in Historical Perspective
South Africa's 2.8 million Afrikaners are descen-
dants mainly of Dutch, French, German, and Scottish
settlers who came to southern Africa in the 17th and
18th centuries. They share the Calvinist religion of
the Dutch Reformed Church, the Afrikaans language,
and a common historical experience. For the past
century and a half the driving ideology of the
Afrikaner has been uncompromising nationalism.
Following the-British conquest of Cape Province
during the Napoleonic Wars, British Common Law
established equality between Afrikaner farmers and
their Colored and African servants. Between 1834
and 1838, about 30 percent of the Afrikaner popula-
tion of the Cape trekked north to remove themselves
from British law. Anna Steenkamp, the wife of one of
the trek leaders, explained their intent: "We rather
withdrew so as to preserve our doctrines in purity. "
In the 19th century, the Afrikaners established two
republics north of the Cape-the Orange Free State
and the Transvaal. Afrikaner government was rough
but democratic, and on one point all Afrikaners
agreed: "There could be no equality between the
Colored people and the white inhabitants either in
church or state, " according to the Constitution of the
Orange Free State.
The decision of the Afrikaner republics to fight the
British-first in 1880 and again in 1899-reflected
the dominance of militant nationalists who rejected
compromise. The second Anglo-Boer war divided
Afrikaner society between the "handsuppers, " those
who accepted British authority, and the "bitteren-
ders, " those who stayed in the field until the end.
The defeat of Afrikaner republics in 1902 was the
lowest point in the history of the Afrikaners, and still
heavily influences their thinking. Afrikaner farms in
the two republics had been devastated; over 25,000
Boer women and children had perished in British
concentration camps; and tens of thousands of once
prosperous farmers had become landless workers.
The material effect lasted at least into the 1930s,
when the Afrikaners were described by a Carnegie
Commission study as a `poor white class" with an
average wage less than 60 percent of that of the
English. Approximately 40 percent of Afrikaner chil-
dren were malnourished, according to this study
published in the late 1930s.
Until the late 1940s, Afrikaner society was politically
divided between those Afrikaners who argued that
the future of South Africa was inextricably linked
with the British Commonwealth, and those who
advocated a militant Afrikaner nationalism-princi-
pally the clergymen and intellectuals who founded
the National Party following the First World War.
The Nationalists' militant ideology gradually won
them support in the smaller towns and working-class
suburbs of South Africa, and they mobilized a net-
work of educators, small businessmen, ministers, and
farmers into a movement for the advancement of
Afrikaner society. The party called for economic
reforms to benefit the Afrikaner worker and for rigid
political limitations on the nonwhite peoples. One
Nationalist political slogan was "the Kaffir (African)
in his place and the Koolie (Indian) out of the
country. "
Despite the popularity of Jan Smuts, who had led
South Africa to join the Allied side in World War II,
the Afrikaners united to defeat Smuts in the 1948
general election, bringing the NP to power for the
first time. The NP proceeded to build a powerful
political machine by gerrymandering parliamentary
constituencies to give weight to smaller rural districts
and by forming a party organization at local levels
that included over 25 percent of the adult Afrikaner
population.
The National Party has been in power since 1948. As
government and parastatal bodies absorbed 40 per-
cent of the Afrikaner workforce and as the salaries
of Afrikaners reached approximate parity with those
of English speakers, the Afrikaner ceased to be a
'poor white." The NP also established a more rigid
and systematic approach to white supremacy than the
British had imposed, restricting black political activi-
ty to 10 tribal homelands, removing the Coloreds
from the voting roll, and displacing more than 3 mil-
lion Coloreds, Indians, and Africans from their
homes in residential areas the Nationalist govern-
ment reserved for whites.
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The Broederbond
had long been the key institution in the formation of
Afrikaner political opinion and in generating support
for the NP, especially in smaller towns and rural
areas. Conservatives also led revolts against estab-
lished officials in the Dutch Reformed Church, the
Afrikaner Federated Teachers Union, and the Feder-
ation of Afrikaner Cultural Associations, which repre-
sents approximately 3,700 organizations, according to
press and US Embassy reporting.
With their ideology increasingly at odds with the
direction Botha was taking the NP, rightwing intellec-
tuals formed the Afrikaner Volkswag (Afrikaner Peo-
ple's Guard) in May 1984 as a rival to the Broeder-
bond. the declared
aim of the Afrikaner Volkswag is "to work for the
future of the white race." By late 1984, South African
journalists estimated the membership of the Afrika-
ner Volkswag had grown to approximately 5,000. It
has drawn support from conservative politicians;
church, educational, and cultural associations; and
paramilitary organizations such as the Afrikaner
Weerstandsbeweging (Afrikaner Armed Resistance).
The split within the Afrikaner community is also
reflected in public opinion polls. A survey conducted
in March 1984 by South Africa's foremost social
science research institute at the University of Natal
indicated, for example, that only 53 percent of Afrika-
ners believed P. W. Botha was a "dependable and
strong leader" and that only 47 percent believed he
knew "what the country really needs." Likewise, polls
taken between 1982 and 1984 consistently showed
that between 30 and 40 percent of Afrikaners in the
Transvaal-South Africa's most populous province,
which has 57 of the 128 Nationalist members of
Parliament-no longer support the NP.
Political Organization
On the political side, the revival of the right came
from the formation of the Conservative Party (CP) by
the 16 parliamentarians who left the National Party in
March 1982. The CP has attracted support from
many prominent Afrikaner politicians, including B. J.
Vorster, the Prime Minister from 1966 to 1978., and
Connie Mulder, former leader of the Transvaal cau-
cus of the party and P. W. Botha's principal rival for
the premiership in 1978, as well as several other
former Cabinet ministers. 25X1
The CP quickly developed a political base in the rural
and lower-middle-class urban districts of the Trans-
vaal and the Orange Free State. Political surveys
indicate that the CP also has strong support among
farmers and smalltown businessmen as well as
middle- and lower-grade civil servants, teachers, and
policemen-essentially the Afrikaner lower middle
class. The CP now has 18 representatives in parlia-
ment and has a functioning party organization in all
four South African provinces. F___1 25X1
The CP is not the only party on the right. The
extreme right had long been the preserve of the
Herstigte Nasionale Party (the HNP or Reconstituted
National Party), which was formed in 1969 by four
Nationalist parliamentarians who bolted the party on
the issue of multiracial sports. Although the HNP has
failed to win a single parliamentary or provincial
council election since its formation, voting results
have shown that it has solidified its support in many
Afrikaner working-class neighborhoods since the ear-
ly 1980s, even as the HNPs lower-middle-class mem-
bers appear to have flocked to the new CP.z In
districts where competition between white and black
workers is most intense-the mining towns of the
Transvaal and the major industrial cities of Cape
Province-HNP support is strongest. In the 1981
general election, the HNP took a strong antireform
stance and won 14.1 percent of the total vote and- 25X1
more significantly-more than 25 percent of the
Afrikaner vote
The combined strength of the CP and HNP repre-
sents a growing electoral challenge to the National
2 Since the formation of the CP in 1982, over a third of the HNP's
membership has joined that new party, according to US Embassy
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Figure 2
Results of Parliamentary and Provincial
Council Byelections, 1982-84
National Party
New Republic Party -1.3
Herstigte Nasionale Partya-5.7-
Progressive Federal Party
Conservative Party a
a Rightwing parties.
Party, as evident in voting over the past two years. In
17 byelections for parliamentary and provincial coun-
cil seats held between June 1982 and November 1984,
the rightwing parties won approximately 40 percent of
the popular vote as against 52 percent for the Nation-
al Party. In the five parliamentary byelections in the
Transvaal, the right outpolled the NP by 53 to 47
percent. According to US Embassy and press analysis,
30 to 40 percent of Afrikaner voters voted against the
recently implemented new Constitution in the referen-
dum among white voters in late 1983, as had been
recommended by the HNP and CP; the Constitution
passed with two-thirds of the total white vote in what
25X1 was widely viewed as a great victory for P. W. Botha,
The two rightwing parties publicly agreed to an
electoral pact in June 1984 after interparty rivalry led
to Nationalist victories in two byelections in 1982 and
1983. The pact led to open cooperation in several
byelections and to a CP victory in one byelection in
the northern Transvaal-the result, according to jour-
nalist observers, of HNP support for the CP ticket.?
Both rightwing parties have expanded their cam-
paigns into middle-class urban and suburban districts.
For example, in byelections in November 1984, the
CP and HNP challenged seats in Cape Province held
by the Nationalists since the 1940s, winning 15 to 25
percent of the vote. A senior South African official
told US diplomats last summer that a united right-
wing movement might win several seats in the more
conservative districts of eastern Cape Province in a
future general election. Progressive Federal Party
leader Frederick van Zyl Slabbert recently told senior
US diplomats that with consistent HNP support the
CP could take 40 to 50 seats in a general election and
supplant his own liberally oriented party as the offi-
cial opposition.
Rightwing Ideology and Tactics
The rightwing parties are totally opposed to any form
of power sharing with the Indians and Coloreds.
Andries Treurnicht, who now leads the Conservative
Party, emphasized in speeches in Parliament in 1984
that limited political rights for Coloreds and Indians
were the "thin edge of the wedge" that would lead
inexorably to universal suffrage and "one man, one
vote." The HNP's leader, Jaap Marais, said in a
speech last September that "the government had
entered into an alliance with the Coloreds and Indians
against Afrikanerdom" by putting the new Constitu-
tion into effect. Rightwing positions on domestic and
regional issues directly oppose those of the National
Party:
? Apartheid, Treurnicht openly argues, is necessary to
protect the white man and to prevent him from
being swamped by other races. The right opposes
any change in the apartheid system in sports, educa-
tion, or labor-areas in which the NP has been
cautiously open to limited reform. .
the NP, and the program of reform.
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? The right views the National Party's attempts at
accommodation with Mozambique and Angola as
surrenders to the African Marxist states. An editori-
al in the Herstigte Nasionale Party's newspaper, for
example, called the Nkomati Pact with Mozam-
bique a "betrayal of the vital interests of the white
people."
? Both rightwing parties are critical of alleged US
interference in South African domestic and regional
policies. The HNP has been particularly vociferous
in publicly denouncing Foreign Minister Pik Botha
as a "stooge of Washington," charging that the
National Party has subordinated South Africa's
interests to those of the United States.
A review of CP and HNP statements shows the
right's tactical ability to play on the specific concerns
of electoral groups. The right capitalized in byelec-
tions in 1984 on Afrikaner middle-class frustration
with the economic recession, which has worsened
since 1982, and on instances of alleged corruption
within the Nationalist leadership, such as a $120,000
honorarium paid to P. W. Botha for his 35 years of
parliamentary service. The right also has played on
working-class Afrikaner fears that improving facili-
ties for nonwhites means poorer ones for whites-a
concern often reflected under the rubric of "maintain-
ing standards." In three major towns in the northern
Transvaal, Conservative Party supporters wrested
control of local government from the National Party
in early 1984 and passed legislation reinforcing apart-
heid regulations.
Limits to Rightwing Influence
Despite its growing strength, the right has so far
failed to mount an effective challenge to the National
Party's hold on the bulk of the Afrikaner middle class,
which, according to US diplomatic and journalist
observers, was largely created by the ascendancy of
the NP since 1948 and, according to recent polls, now
constitutes the largest segment of the Afrikaner popu-
lation. Indeed, according to recent government statis-
tics, 25 to 30 percent of top management positions in
the private sector and 90 percent of all senior civil
servant positions are in Afrikaner hands, whereas only
8 percent of the Afrikaner population are now farmers
(down from 35 percent in 1948).
While the right has made inroads among Afrikaners,
it has not had much success in recruiting English
speakers, who are approximately 40 percent of the
white population and distrust the militant Afrikaner
nationalism of the right. Political surveys by Afrika-
ner universities indicate that the HNP won less than
2 percent of the English vote in the 1981 general
election. According to recent polls taken by the
English and Afrikaans press, only 5 to 7 percent of the
English community now supports either the CP or the
HNP. Many white former Rhodesians and, since
1980, Zimbabweans, have resettled in South Africa,
however, giving a boost to English-speaking support
for the right. In two recent byelections, English-
speaking immigrants from Zimbabwe voted in large
numbers for the Conservative Party, according to
press reports, indicating at least some potential for
future inroads.
In trying to attract both the Afrikaner middle-class
and English-speaking whites, the right is severely
constrained by lack of money. Neither can afford a
daily newspaper-a serious handicap in a country in
which the government controls the broadcast media.
Both parties have weekly newspapers, however, with
an average circulation of about 15,000-compared
with 60,000 to 100,000 for the National Party dailies
in the Cape and Transvaal. The right's shaky finan-
cial support also has limited the development of a
professional political bureaucracy, which it needs to
counter the formidable National Party apparatus.
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Despite the cooperation of the CP and HNP at the
polls, we believe competition between the two parties
will continue to divide the right and prevent a united
challenge to the NP:
? Relations between HNP leader Jaap Marais and
Conservative Party chairman Andries Treurnicht
have been strained for years, according to press and
US Embassy reporting.
? According to the Afrikaans media, many HNP
leaders resent the CP's success and feel that the
rival party is "soft" on racial and regional issues.
? According to South African press accounts, several
violent clashes have occurred between HNP and CP
regulars at meetings and rallies.
Moreover, in several byelections in 1982 and 1983,
the National Party has won despite drawing fewer
votes than the combined total of the two rightwing
parties.
If the electoral pact formed last June breaks down, a
significant number of HNP supporters probably will
join the CP and lead other HNP militants to leave
conventional politics. Some might join paramilitary
organizations like the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging
or the Wit Kommando (White Commando), both of
which have been implicated in terrorist assaults on
government officials, liberal Afrikaner academics,
and civil rights workers. In an interview last Decem-
ber, Minister of Law and Order Louis Le Grange
noted that the police were concerned about the growth
of these two organizations
Given the inroads the right has made, the National
Party is taking steps to limit the potential political
damage. President Botha, as party leader, has careful-
ly crafted policies to limit further defections by
rightwing Nationalists, to solidify support in the
Afrikaner middle class, and to increase support in the
English-speaking community.
Latent Support for the Right Within the NP
The greatest potential threat to Botha's control over
the government, in our view, comes from the right
wing of his own party. According to recent articles in
the South African press, approximately 25 of the 128
National Party members of Parliament belong to a
conservative faction that favors forgoing further polit-
ical reforms to win back dissident Afrikaners who
have been dissaffected by Botha's commitment to
change. Because many of these parliamentarians
faced stiff challenges from HNP and Conservative
Party candidates in the 1981 general election and
subsequent byelections, they believe themselves vul-
nerable to defeat by candidates from the right in
future contests, according to press reporting.
We believe latent support for the right exists at every
level within the ruling party, including the Cabinet.
According to US Embassy reporting, the leading
conservative in the National Party is Minister of
Home Affairs F. W. De Klerk, leader of the party
caucus in the Transvaal and one of the chief contend-
ers for the succession to P. W. Botha as President.
Minister of Transportation Hendrik Schoeman is
another senior Transvaal Nationalist who has been
named by South African journalists as a leader of the
rightwing faction of the party.
Despite the ideological affinity of the NP's right wing
to the HNP and CP, according to press and US
Embassy reporting, P. W. Botha's skillful use of
National Party patronage, discipline, and perquisites
has kept the rightwing faction. within the party:
? National Party discipline remains intact in the
parliamentary caucus of the party. In early Febru-
ary, F. W. De Klerk himself introduced bills to
repeal the Mixed Marriages Act and that part of
the Immorality Act, which prohibit marriage and
sex across racial lines. Although the existing legisla-
tion has the support of conservative Afrikaners both
inside and outside the NP, he did so because these
issues fall within his portfolio and because, as an NP
minister, he is bound to support the agreed party
position.
? Botha's appointment of a conservative Afrikaner,
B. H. Wilkens, to serve as Deputy Minister of Land
Development is only the most recent indication that
Botha is sensitive to the need to co-opt the party's
right.
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Dr. Andries Treurnicht, the leader of the Conserva-
tive Party, has been the intellectual leader of right-
wing Afrikanerdom since the early 1960s. As a one-
time Dutch Reformed Church clergyman, newspaper
editor, chairman of the semisecret Afrikaner Broe-
derbond, and Cabinet minister, Treurnicht has been
an uncompromising advocate of apartheid.
In 1960, while serving as moderator of the Cape
branch of the Dutch Reformed Church, Treurnicht
stifled opposition to apartheid within his church,
almost certainly at the behest of then Prime Minister
H. J. Verwoerd. In the late 1960s, as the editor of the
conservative journal Hoofstad and later as chairman
of the Broederbond, Treurnicht became the spokes-
man of the right wing within the National Party.
In 1971, Treurnicht was elected to Parliament from
Waterberg, an extremely conservative constituency in
the northern Transvaal, which he still represents. He
entered the Cabinet in 1974 and four years later was
appointed head of the Transvaal caucus of the Na-
tional Party.
In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Treurnicht became
Botha's most persistent critic within the Cabinet.
Because of his opposition to reform, Treurnicht was
named "Dr. No" by the English press. His decision to
challenge the Prime Minister on the National Party
policy of constitutional reform in March 1982 led to
his expulsion from the party with 15 other National-
ist members of Parliament and their formation of the
Conservative Party.
Treurnicht is highly respected among Afrikaners. A
poll taken in 1983 showed that 40 percent of them
rated him as a "true Afrikaner, " as compared with
45 percent for P. W. Botha. Treurnicht is both the
leading ideologue and the most forceful speaker in
the Conservative Party and is, in our opinion, the
only politically active Afrikaner capable of leading a
cohesive rightwing opposition to President Botha.
Treurnicht, who is in his sixties and holds a doctor-
ate in divinity from Stellenbosch University, eschews
racial statements in his defense of apartheid. In a
speech last December, Treurnicht noted that the
Afrikaner does not regard himself as a member of
some chosen race at the expense of others but that
"he is a member of a nation which has its own
culture, its own right to a separate existence and to a
Jaap Marais, leader of the Herstigte Nasionale Par-
ty, is a longtime rival of Treurnicht, having defeated
him in three elections for the Waterberg parliamenta-
ry seat. In the late 1960s, Treurnicht helped cast
Marais and his fellow HNP militants out of the
National Party and the Broederbond-insults that
Marais has never forgiven, according to US Embassy
and journalist reports.
Marais was one of the four National Party parlia-
mentarians who formed the HNP in 1969. He served
as deputy leader of the HNP until he assumed the
party's leadership in 1977. Marais is a forceful party
leader with a large following among Afrikaner blue-
collar voters. He is an effective and popular political
speaker.
Marais, who is in his late fifties, shows little of
Treurnicht's intellectual polish. While Treurnicht is
equally fluent in English and Afrikaans, Marais will
speak only the latter. Whereas Treurnicht speaks of
rights for all South Africans, Marais speaks of the
swart gewaar (the black danger) to white South
Africa. Because of the personal, ideological, and
political differences between the two men, we believe
that Marais would be the more likely to break the
electoral alliance between their parties. In case of
such a split, we estimate that the HNP would lose
supporters to the Conservative Party.
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Right wing Afrikaner paramilitary organizations have
proliferated during the past five years. Two have
carried out terrorist attacks against moderate Afri-
kaner politicians and intellectuals. Although these
groups have only minimal support in the Afrikaner
community, we believe they have the potential for
carrying out more extensive and destructive opera-
tions during the next two years.
The Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging (Afrikaner
Armed Resistance or A WB) is the best organized and
largest of the paramilitary groups with approximate-
ly 1,200 members, according to press reporting and
academic studies. Since the mid-1970s, the AWB has
attacked moderate Afrikaner intellectuals, clergy-
men, and politicians on several occasions. In 1983,
two members of the AWB were sentenced to 15 years
imprisonment for plotting terrorist raids against mul-
tiracial hotels and casinos. Minister of Law and
Order Louis Le Grange stated in Parliament last
May that the security police were actively monitoring
Eugene Terre'Blanche, the leader of the Afrikaner
Weerstandsbeweging, has patterned the party on the
German National Socialist (Nazi) movement, and he
himself apes Hitler's mannerisms. The party symbol
is a version of the Swastika, and Terre'Blanche-
whose name can be translated as "white land"-
surrounds himself with young men in brown shirts. In
mid-1984, Terre'Blanche announced that the AWB
would cooperate with the Conservative Party in its
campaigns in the Transvaal, stating that such cooper-
ation was "necessary to keep alive the flame of
freedom of the white race." While A WB assistance
may have contributed marginally to the Conserva-
tives' victory in one constituency, press reports indi-
cate that this help may have cost the CP support in
wider Afrikaner circles.
The other major rightist paramilitary group, the Wit
Kommando (White Commando or WK), is more
clandestine and violent than the A WB. In the past
five years, the WK has claimed responsibility for
bomb attacks against opponents ranging from offi-
cials of the National Party to white civil rights
activists. In a press statement issued last year, the
WK noted that its declared policy was "to warn first,
and later to eliminate, if necessary, all persons,
institutions, and organizations promoting racial inte-
gration and black rule in South Africa. " In December
1984, the Wit Kommando threatened to kill Ameri-
can legislators visiting South Africa, according to US
Embassy reporting.
As of 1982, the Wit Kommando was composed of 500
men, according to a press interview with Gen. Johan
Coetzee,.the present Commissioner of the South
African Police. In the same article, the South African
security official speculated that Italians financed the
Wit Kommando through sympathetic Italian-South
Afrikaner proto-fascist movements are not a new
development. More than 100,000 Afrikaners joined
the pro-Nazi Ossewa Brandwag (Ox Wagon Sentinels
or OB) in the late 1930s and early 1940s. The OB
openly supported Nazi war aims, carried out espio-
nage activities for Germany, and terrorized pro-
British Afrikaners. Both future Prime Minister B. J.
Vorster and Gen. Hendrik van den Bergh, head of the
Bureau for State Security from 1966 to 1977, were
detained for subversive activities as OB members
during the war. The OB was absorbed into the
National Party in the late 1940s, but residual sympa-
thy for the aims and means of the Nazi regime
remains among at least a small minority of Afrika-
ners, according to polls and academic studies.
We believe that the paramilitary organizations have
been responsible for killing white political activists,
such as civil rights worker Richard Turner, who was
murdered in 1978. The potential for future attacks is
high and will increase if frustration within the Afri-
kaner community with reform continues to grow. In
our view, the most likely target offuture rightwing
terrorist attacks would be government officials. F_
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Botha's Strengths and Strategies
Although the Nationalist right wing will seek to
undercut Botha's reformist agenda, we believe-on
the basis of recent polls and press reporting from
South Africa-that P. W. Botha is very much in
control of the National Party and that the great
majority of the party membership continues to sup-
port his commitment to reform:
? A poll taken in mid-1984 found that only 12 percent
of Afrikaans-speaking Nationalist voters felt that
sufficient change and reform had taken place or
that change had gone too far. In the same survey,
only 18 percent felt that P. W. Botha should try to
win back support from the rightwing parties, while
substantially more (29 percent) felt that the NP
should collaborate more with black, Colored, and
Indian leaders.
? A poll taken by an Afrikaans newspaper in Novem-
ber 1984 found that the average National Party
voter "had moved to the left" on most domestic
issues but that the English-speaking voter had be-
come more conservative. The survey also found that
the majority of NP supporters were amenable to
further political, social, and economic change. The
US Embassy, commenting on the poll, noted that
moderates now dominated the NP.
Botha has tried to stifle intraparty rivalry, and has
refused to allow his supporters to challenge or to
embarrass the rightwing faction within the NP. For
example, he prevented moderate Nationalists from
challenging De Klerk for the leadership of the party
in the Transvaal during the last meeting of the
provincial caucus of the party,
Consolidating Afrikaner Support. Botha also has
made important changes during the past year to
revitalize support for the NP in the Afrikaner com-
munity. Despite the widely publicized defection to the
right of many local NP party chapters, which have
been reported in the South African press, NP organiz-
ers have strengthened the party apparatus in many
constituencies now by recruiting new members. Al-
though this effort has not been successful in rural
districts, the NP organization in urban constituencies
seems as strong as ever. For example, in the Novem-
ber 1984 byelection in Primrose near Johannesburg,
the local NP organization identified 2,000 postal
(absentee) voters for a hard-pressed candidate whose
margin of victory was less than 800 votes.
Botha has purged the Cabinet of unpopular and
incompetent ministers during the past year, replacing
them with younger Afrikaner politicians. The average
age of incoming Cabinet ministers in 1975 was 55,
with an average parliamentary experience of 15 years.
The new Nationalist ministers have served only 7 to
10 years in Parliament and are mainly in their early
40s. Now serving in critical positions in the Ministries
of Finance, Foreign Affairs, and Industry, they have
been supporters of P. W. Botha since the late 1970s
and have actively backed his program of political and
economic reform within the parliamentary caucus of
the National Party, according to both journalistic and
US diplomatic reporting.'
Wooing the English. Botha has made an active effort
to attract English speakers to the National Party since
he became Prime Minister in 1978. He persuaded
several English-speaking parliamentarians from oppo-
sition parties to join the NP, and he has actively
supported English-speaking Nationalist candidates in
' These young supporters of President Botha include Minister of
Finance Barend Du Plessis, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs
Louis Nel, Minister of Industry Dawie De Villiers, and Deputy
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byelections. This policy paid dividends in the constitu-
tional referendum of 1983, when 60 to 70 percent of
the English-speaking whites supported him and the
National Party by voting "yes," according to US
Embassy reporting. A leader of the liberal, English-
oriented Progressive Federal Party told US diplomats
after the referendum that approximately half of his
party voted "yes" despite the PFP's spirited opposi-
tion to the new Constitution.
Recent elections suggest that the National Party's
redoubled efforts to recruit English speakers are
paying off. English-speaking Nationalists have won
parliamentary and provincial elections in Natal, Cape
Province, and even the Transvaal. While there is still
considerable "anti-Nat" feeling in the English-
speaking community, polls indicate that the NP is
developing a base among a growing number of En-
glish-speaking whites at the local level in both urban
The National Party has benefited from the ongoing
disintegration of the New Republic Party, which
controls the provincial government in Natal-the only
province with an English-speaking majority. Three
leading NRP parliamentarians switched to the NP in
September 1984, and one of the defectors was made a
deputy minister. Both US Embassy and journalist
observers believe that the recent appointment of a
liberal Afrikaner as NP leader for Natal will acceler-
ate the demise of the NRP and bring more English
voters to the National Party.
Botha's foreign policy, in our view, has fostered a
political consensus between English and Afrikaans
speakers on most security issues, and won him still
more English votes. A public opinion survey taken in
March 1984 showed that 92 percent of white South
Africans supported Pretoria's pact with Mozambique,
including more than 85 percent of English speakers.
Botha's trip to Western Europe last summer, the first
such visit by a South African Prime Minister in over a
decade, also received approval among most English
speakers, according to political surveys.
The growing accord between "Boer" and "Briton"
seems evident on domestic political issues as well.
Polls taken in mid-1983 reveal growing support in the
English community for Nationalist domestic policies:
one poll showed that 50 percent of English speakers
were "somewhat satisfied" or "very satisfied" with
the government's efforts to solve domestic and foreign
problems, compared with those of previous National-
ist governments.
The National Party recently has made concessions to
the influential English-speaking community in Cape
Province that were designed in part to gain support in
the English-speaking population generally. The South
African Government announced late last year that
laws restricting blacks from permanent residence in
western Cape Province would be repealed, a long-
standing demand of the Cape business community
that had been opposed by the National Party for over
a decade. The fact that P. W. Botha and his lieuten-
ants were able to obtain support for this controversial
measure in the Cabinet suggests that they might press
ahead with other measures designed in part to co-opt
English-speaking voters.
The Most Likely Prospect: The Right Remains Weak
We believe that the National Party will have little
difficulty weathering the threat from the right in the
near term. We agree with most observers that the
party will probably not suffer a major split as long as
Botha is National Party leader and President.
Indeed, recent US Embassy reporting on the opening
of the new tricameral legislature suggests that Botha
will be less constrained than before by pressure from
the right. Botha's recent public statements in favor of
a national political role for the country's black major-
ity and his recent unprecedented public discussions of
the status and possible release of Nelson Mandela, the
imprisoned leader of the African National Congress,
seem to reflect renewed self-confidence in his author-
ity both within the National Party and among Afrika-
ners.
If-as we expect-the NP maintains its hold on the
Afrikaner middle class and roughly its present level of
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support within the English-speaking community, we
would expect P. W. Botha or his successors to be able
to maintain a reformist course over the next two to
five years. As long as Botha seems in control of the
process and the pace of change, we doubt that the
right will be able to broaden its support within the
white community sufficiently to challenge the NP.
We believe, moreover, there is a better-than-even
chance that rivalries between the two rightwing par-
ties and their leaders will shatter their electoral
alliance and degrade their capacity to threaten the
NP. The result of such fratricide within the right,
however, would probably be the growth of radical-
right paramilitary groups and more attacks by these
organizations against government officials and insti-
tutions.
The divisions within Afrikaner society, have served
US interests in southern Africa, in our view, by giving
P. W. Botha greater freedom to carry out domestic
reforms and regional accommodations that have
moved South African policy in the direction of US
goals of peaceful change and stability. We believe
Botha's ability to continue his reformist program and
policy of regional detente will depend directly on his
continued capability to contain the threat from the
right both inside and outside the National Party.
US declarations on southern African developments,
which are reported extensively in the South African
press, probably represent a two-sided sword for mod-
erate National Party leaders. A senior official of the
Ministry of Foreign Affairs told US diplomats last
December that the US policy of constructive engage-
ment had helped the NP build the growing coalition
of moderate English- and Afrikaans-speaking white
South Africans in favor of reformist initiatives. On
the other hand, overt pressure on South Africa by
Western governments-especially public criticism-is
viewed by Pretoria as counterproductive. Botha's
quick response to President Reagan's criticism of
apartheid late last year showed that Botha and his
colleagues feel it imperative that they be seen in total
control of the pace and direction of political and social
change.
Alternative Scenario: A Threat From the Right
A less likely scenario would develop if widespread
racial violence-particularly in combination with
worsening economic conditions or a major foreign
policy setback-drastically reduced P. W. Botha's
mandate within the National Party and caused Afri-
kaners to lurch to the right. In a period of crisis,
particularly if the President and his reform program
were widely viewed as responsible for growing unrest
or were seen losing control of the situation, rightwing
Nationalists might succeed in undercutting Botha's
position and rallying the yolk on a conservative course
in an attempt to turn back the clock.
The Nationalist right wing would also have an oppor-
tunity to achieve power during a succession crisis.
Should Botha, who is 69, die or resign suddenly in a
scandal, as did his predecessor, the balance of power
in the National Party could shift:
?._ If the party leadership goes to another moderate
Nationalist-such as Minister of Foreign Affairs
"Pik" Botha or Minister of Cooperation and Devel-
opment Gerrit Viljoen-as we believe most likely,
rightwingers might bolt the party, joining the Con-
servative Party. Although the defection of 25 NP
parliamentarians would make the CP the strongest
opposition party, the NP would still maintain its
grip on power: the parliamentary balance would
shift from 128 Nationalists and 18 Conservatives to
103 Nationalists and 43 Conservatives, an apparent-
ly comfortable majority of 25 in the Parliament. In
our judgment, however, the psychological effect of
such a major split in the party would be severe,
making even NP verligtes wary about continuing on
a reformist course and perhaps shaking the underly-
ing confidence of the Afrikaners in their long-term
ability to control the government and the black
majority.
? If a leader of the Nationalist right wing such as
F. W. De Klerk is selected as Botha's successor, he
probably would halt or at least slow the pace of
reform, an outcome not dissimilar to that of a
verligte government with a slim parliamentary ma-
jority.
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Should the rightwing Nationalists succeed in forcing
the party to retrench on Botha's program of reform,
we believe that US-South African relations would
suffer. The polarization of South African society that,
in our view, would be likely to result from a rightwing
victory would almost certainly put greater pressure on
Washington to divorce itself from Pretoria.
A rightwing government in South Africa would also
drastically affect US interests in southern Africa, in
our view. The likelihood of conflict between Pretoria
and its neighbors would rise, reviving or creating new
opportunities for greater Soviet influence in southern
Africa.
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