South Africa: Small Favors

More power to some people

"We have a vote in favor of evolutionary reform." So proclaimed a buoyant South African Prime Minister Pieter W. Botha last week, and for once he was not merely wishing aloud. By a two-to-one majority, some 2.1 million voters — a fraction of the white-dominated country's 30 million inhabitants — had endorsed a proposal sponsored by Botha's ruling National Party to rewrite the South African constitution and soften its policy of whites-only rule. Botha also hailed the outcome of the referendum as "overwhelming." There Prime Minister was stretching matters...

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