The South African Scene

Abstract

is an Arabic saying, dating from the days of the slave traders, that if one played on a flute in Zanzibar all Africa danced. This was a picturesque way of saying that any event in Africa had its repercussions all over the continent. It is as true today as it was two hundred years ago. Perhaps the most important single event in Africa during the past year has been Dr. Malan's victory in the South African general election last April. This victory re-endorsing a policy of militant White supremacy has been watched with mixed feelings by European minorities in East and Central Africa and by millions of Africans, at different stages of political development all over the Dark Continent. For all practical purposes the election was fought between two parties, the Nationalist Party, led by Dr. Daniel Malan, and the United Party, formerly led by General Smuts and now under the leadership of Mr. Strauss. The South African Labour Party contested a few constituencies under an electoral agreement with the United Party but the influence of this party in South African affairs is slight. When parliament dissolved before the election Dr. Malan's Nationalist Party had a majority of thirteen seats over all the other parties. The election gave him a majority of twenty-nine seats. About this result two points must be made clear. Dr. Malan increased his majority in the election, but, as in 1948, he did not poll as many votes as his opponents. That his majority was as large as 29 seats on a minority vote, was due to the peculiarities of the South African electoral system which weighs the country constituencies over the urban ridings. The other point is, that, only a handful of non-Europeans voted at all. Some of the forty-eight thousand Cape Coloureds (people of mixed descent) who remained on the common electoral roll in spite of Dr. Malan's efforts to remove them in 1952, voted in the Cape Province. Apart from this exception, the election was a White affair,