Weekend Argus (Saturday Edition)
Election ‘shocks’ signalled the beginnings of change
Some key events from this week in history are reflected in reports from the archives of the Argus’s 160-year-old titles.
IT MUST have been obvious in May 1987 that South Africa’s future was not what it used to be – but none back then would have foreseen that in the same month just three short years on a barely imaginable future had already begun.
Details are often forgotten, but it does seem staggering that between June 1986 and June 1987, an estimated 26 000 South Africans were detained in a countrywide State of Emergency PW Botha’s embattled government hoped would keep a lid on dissent.
On May 6, 1987, the Nationalists’ difficulties were amplified when white voters went to the polls.
The Nats won, but, for the first time in nearly four decades, they faced an official opposition from the right, Andries Treurnicht’s Conservative Party having snatched this status from the Progressive Federal Party.
It was a poll that one report described as “an election of shocks” in which, among other things, a cabinet minister and two deputy ministers lost their seats.
And, to compound their difficulties, the Nats were also having to contend with a revolt among the formerly faithful. One of them, former constitutional adviser and latterly the country’s ambassador in London, Denis Worrall, set a cat among the pigeons earlier in the year when he resigned his plum diplomatic post and came home to contest the seat – Helderberg – held by the government’s constitutional architect, Chris Heunis. Heunis kept his seat, but only by a slim 39 votes. Another independent, Nat defector Wynand Malan, won his seat.
Everyone was feeling the heat – but Worrall was probably closest to the mark when he observed after his creditable loss that the performance of the independents in the election “had to be seen as ‘the beginning of something new’.”
He was no less accurate in observing that “the overall election result was ‘depressing to people who are concerned with fundamental change in South Africa’.”
This was a sentiment grimly expressed in the headline of May 7: “Country enters ‘Dark Ages’ – Tutu”.
At a joint press conference with Ned Geref Kerk moderator Dr Allan Boesak at Bishopscourt, Desmond Tutu, then the Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town, promised that “intensified international pressure on the South African Government will be called for as the country enters the ‘Dark Ages’.” He added: “It is our last chance of bringing about a resolution of the crisis in our country.”
The report went on to quote Dr Boesak, who said that “by voting as they did, whites had shown support for the emergency, for detentions and for the actions of ‘the generals and the police who have been running the country’.”
The next notable May was in 1990; A May 5 Weekend Argus report on a phone-in poll expresses something of the volte face: “A convincing 70% of the 205 callers were heartened ‘ that the two enemies were communicating at last’.”
The country had already had a few months of novel euphoria, following the unbanning of the liberation movements and the release of Nelson Mandela. Now the hard work began. On May 2 – headline: “Round 1 – face-to-face for most crucial talks in SA history” – the news brought details of the first steps towards a negotiated settlement.
“The two most powerful political leaders in South Africa, backed by their high-powered teams of negotiators, meet this afternoon in the historic dining room of Groote Schuur – the former residence of prime ministers in Newlands – for the first round of negotiations which will determine the future of South Africa.
“World focus is centred on what is being called ‘the most crucial talks in South Africa’s history’ as President De Klerk and representatives of the government meet Mr Nelson Mandela and a team of ANC negotiators for the first time.” Both sides expected “tough and frank” talks.
The result, the Groote Schuur Minute, was undoubtedly a milestone, though it was only the beginning.
Still, the ice had been broken, and there was scope for a bit of avuncular commentary; one of the key exiles – later to be president – Thabo Mbeki observed at a Press Club lunch: “We were a bit surprised, I think, at how foolish all of us have been because in a matter of minutes everybody in the room understood that nobody there had horns.”
A day later, on May 5, Man- dela expressed himself in slightly more peeved tone, with a gentle reminder that apartheid wasn’t dead yet.
“Twenty- seven years ago when I went to jail I had no vote and I still have no vote …that’s due to the colour of my skin. The State President (FW de Klerk) has made several statements dealing with the government’s ‘new direction’ and I haven’t the slightest doubt that he means what he says.
“But the reality is I still have no vote. You can then decide whether apartheid is alive or not.”
As one of those callers in the Weekend Argus poll on May 5, a Mr Guy Kukard of Table View, put it: “It’s high time – it should have happened a long, long time ago.”
This was not the source of unqualified comfort to everyone, however.
Some of the “less hopeful” callers to the newspaper were angry that the government was footing the ANC’s Lord Charles Hotel bill. (The ANC contingent at the Groote Schuur talks was put up there for the duration.)
A Mr JC Lord from Kenilworth was quoted as saying: “If the ANC are not capable of settling a five-star hotel bill, how can they expect whites to trust them with the country’s economy?”
Things have changed a lot since then – not least that anxieties about the economy have long since ceased to seem the preserve of a minority, or that anyone would sensibly express them in racial terms today.