Following the general election in South Africa on 30 November when the Nationalist Party was returned with a majority of 104 seats, the government indicated its intention to press ahead with the apartheid politics designed to entrench white minority rule still further.
The main thrust of this design lies in the ongoing Bantustan programme, with its concomitant revocation of citizenship from all Africans in the Republic. All the Bantustans except KwaZulu are expected to become 'independent' within five years, Prime Minister Vorster told the new Parliamentary session. Further curtailment of the rights of Africans in the 'white' urban areas were also announced; these are described elsewhere in this issue of FOCUS.
Proposed constitutional alterations to the white parliamentary system have been circulating for some months. On 22 January Mr. Vorster said further consultation and detailed drafting meant that legislation would not be introduced in the current session but will probably come in 1979. Nevertheless the plans are far advanced. They appear to be designed to introduce a form of corporatism into the South African state by including a controlled form of Coloured and Indian representation, and to ensure Nationalist rule in perpetuity by diminishing the role of the white opposition.
It is proposed to abolish the present whites-only bicameral parliament on the Westminster model, to which the government is answerable, and to replace it with a two-tier system. There will be three separate parliaments for the white, Coloured and Asian population groups, each with authority on matters concerning its own group only. Above this will be a Cabinet Council comprising the Prime Ministers of each parliament together with five other white, three other Coloured and one other Indian Ministers (a total of six whites and six blacks) together with the white State President. The President is to be chosen by an electoral college made up of 88 M.P.'s drawn from the majority party in each Parliament (50 white, 25 Coloured and 13 Indian) and will in turn nominate a Prime Minister to serve on the Cabinet Council.
The Cabinet Council will be responsible for matters of national interest but will not be accountable to the electorate, and within it power will be vested in the State President, who will thus become an executive rather than a nominal head of state.
Detailed provisions have not yet been worked out but it is clear, according to Dr. G. E. Devenish, senior lecturer in political science at the University of the Western Cape, that the President will be an enormously powerful figure. "Since the white group outnumbers the other two groups, while all opposition parties are excluded from the electoral college, the State President is bound to be the nominee of the white majority party. In effect he will be a Nationalist who will probably, but not necessarily, resolve deadlocks in favour of the desires of the white parliament".
