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Unlock This CourseBotha's reforms were meant to make white rule safer. Their first result was to break up the party that had ruled since 1948. For more than thirty years the National Party had held Afrikaners together. Now it divided into two camps.
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The leader of the verkramptes was Dr Andries Treurnicht, a government minister and head of the National Party in the Transvaal. He was nicknamed 'Dr No' because he opposed change so often. In early 1982 he refused to accept power sharing with Coloured and Indian people. To him, letting anyone who was not white into government was the first step towards black majority rule. He and his followers among the party's MPs were forced out, and in March 1982 they founded the Conservative Party.
The new party grew fast. It campaigned for a 'No' vote in the white referendum of 1983 and lost, but it kept winning over Afrikaner voters. In the white election of May 1987 the National Party still won easily, with 123 seats. The Conservatives won 22 seats and became the official opposition, pushing aside the liberal Progressive Federal Party. In 1989 they rose to 39 seats, while the National Party fell to 94.
This mattered in two ways. The National Party could no longer claim to speak for all Afrikaners, and it came to depend more on English-speaking white voters. And Botha, always looking over his shoulder at the right wing, became more cautious about going further with reform.
Whites were divided. Business leaders and many English speakers welcomed reform. White liberals said it did far too little, because Africans were still shut out. Many Afrikaner farmers, miners, factory workers and junior officials felt betrayed. The end of job reservation meant competing with black workers for jobs, and they feared for their wages, their safety and their way of life.
Coloured voters chose their new chamber in August 1984. Only about 30 per cent of registered voters took part, and many people had not registered at all. The Labour Party, led by the Reverend Allan Hendrickse, won 76 of the 80 elected seats, and Hendrickse joined Botha's cabinet. Its leaders argued that they could fight apartheid better from inside the system. But those who took part were attacked as 'sell-outs' by their own communities.
Some gained. Legal trade unions won better pay, the end of the pass laws gave freedom to move, and a small black middle class grew. But most were angry. The new constitution gave Africans nothing. Instead, a law of 1982 set up elected black township councils. Only about one in five voters took part in the first elections in 1983. The councils raised rents, and councillors were hated as puppets of the government.
Two results were the opposite of what Botha wanted. First, the unions he had made legal became a weapon against apartheid. The National Union of Mineworkers was formed in 1982. In December 1985, 33 unions joined to form COSATU (the Congress of South African Trade Unions), with about 450,000 members, and it openly demanded an end to apartheid. Second, being left out of the new parliament united black opposition as never before. That story is told in the lesson The UDF, Township Unrest and Church Leaders.
Coloured politicians who joined the system soon found its limits. In January 1987 Hendrickse led a protest swim at a whites-only beach in Port Elizabeth. Botha was furious, rebuked him in public and threatened to drop him from the cabinet. Sitting in parliament had not ended apartheid for Coloured people.
Why did so many Afrikaners resist? Remember Afrikaner nationalism: many believed that God had given them South Africa and that apartheid protected their people. They saw reform as surrender. Some decided that even the Conservative Party was too mild, and turned to the AWB.
The AWB was founded in 1973 in Heidelberg, in the Transvaal, by Eugène Terre'Blanche and six others. Terre'Blanche was a former policeman and a powerful public speaker. The AWB copied the style of the Nazis: uniforms, armed guards, and a flag of three black sevens in a white circle on red, which looked like a swastika. Its aim was a separate, white-ruled Boer state based on the old Afrikaner republics of the Transvaal and the Orange Free State.
It used threats and force. In 1979 its members tarred and feathered a history professor in Pretoria for a speech they thought insulted Afrikaner tradition. As Botha's reforms went ahead in the mid-1980s, its support grew and it held large, angry rallies. In 1986 AWB supporters broke up National Party meetings, including one in Pietersburg where the Foreign Minister, Pik Botha, was due to speak. The police used tear gas on them.
How much did the AWB matter? It was never strong enough to take power. Most white voters who disliked reform chose the Conservative Party and the ballot box, not the AWB. But the AWB mattered for two reasons. It showed how deep Afrikaner anger went: white police were now using tear gas on white Afrikaners. And the threat of violence from the right was one more reason for Botha to slow down.
Don't mix up the Conservative Party and the AWB. The Conservative Party was a political party that fought elections and sat in parliament. The AWB was a movement outside parliament that used uniforms, weapons and threats. Don't write that all whites opposed reform: about two thirds had voted 'Yes' in 1983. And don't say Coloured people welcomed the new parliament. Most stayed away from the vote.
Explain two effects of PW Botha's reforms on white politics in South Africa in the years 1982-89. [8 marks]
One effect was that the National Party split. Botha's plan to share power with Coloured and Indian people was rejected by hardliners led by Andries Treurnicht, who saw it as the first step towards black majority rule. They were forced out and founded the Conservative Party in March 1982. Because many Afrikaners felt betrayed by reform, the new party grew, and in 1987 it won 22 seats and became the official opposition. So the reforms ended the National Party's claim to speak for all Afrikaners.
A second effect was the growth of the far right outside parliament. Some Afrikaners thought reform was a surrender that no election could stop, so they turned to the AWB, led by Eugène Terre'Blanche, which wanted a separate Boer state. As the reforms went ahead, its support grew, and in 1986 its members broke up National Party meetings, including one in Pietersburg, until police used tear gas. This threat from the right made Botha more cautious about further reform.
What lifts this to the top level: each paragraph names one clear effect, supports it with precise names and dates, and explains how the reforms led to it.
You must give two effects. One effect, however well explained, cannot score more than 4 of the 8 marks. Use linking words such as 'because' and 'so' to show how the reforms caused each effect, and start a new paragraph for the second one. For more on this question type, see the Exam Skills lesson Paper 1 Question (b): Explain Two Effects.