Viljoen pull-out leaves Buthelezi isolated

SOUTH AFRICA'S right- wing disintegrated further yesterday with the resignation from the Freedom Alliance of General Constand Viljoen, leaving his former ally, Mangosuthu Buthelezi, increasingly isolated in his opposition to next month's general elections.

General Viljoen's resignation, announced at a meeting of alliance leaders in Kimberley, followed his decision to register his Freedom Front for the 26-28 April elections in the wake of the weekend overthrow of Lucas Mangope, an alliance member, as president of the former nominally independent territory of Bophuthatswana. The General resigned from the Afrikaner Volksfront, a key part of the Freedom Alliance, on Saturday.

Chief Buthelezi, Chief Minister of the KwaZulu 'homeland', joined the remnants of the Freedom Alliance leadership yesterday in decrying the dissolution of Bophuthatswana as 'un-Christian, double-crossing betrayal' by the South African government. On Sunday he warned that 'what they did to Bophuthatswana they want to do to KwaZulu'.

By failing to present a list of candidates for the election by the 11 March deadline, Chief Buthelezi appeared to pull his Inkatha Freedom Party out of the polls, arguing that the new constitution did not give enough powers to provincial governments. An Inkatha central committee executive member, Ben Ngubane, disputed that view yesterday, saying: 'As far as we are concerned, last Friday's deadline is immaterial as to whether or not we decide to participate in the elections.'

President F W de Klerk has the authority to amend the Electoral Act to allow Inkatha's registration for the election, but an Independent Electoral Commission spokesman said Inkatha's name had been deleted from the ballot papers. General Viljoen suggested he might seek an electoral and negotiating pact with Inkatha, thus opening the possibility that Inkatha could contest the polls under the Freedom Front banner.

President de Klerk, on the campaign trail yesterday, seemed in no mood to accommodate Inkatha, however, warning that Chief Buthelezi's decision not to participate in the election 'creates a dangerous situation'. Chief Buthelezi, he said, bore 'a very heavy responsibility to ensure that his non-participation will not act as a flashpoint for further violence in that area'.

Finances are Chief Buthelezi's Achilles' heel. At least 89 per cent of his KwaZulu government's pounds 1.1bn annual budget has come from the South African government, mostly in monthly instalments, and there have been persistent reports that KwaZulu civil servants fear that his election boycott stance could cost them their jobs.

Chief Buthelezi has been left with factions of the far-right Conservative Party and Eugene Terre-Blanche's extremist Afrikaner Resistance Movement (AWB) at his side.

Mr Mangope, who was overthrown last week, yesterday maintained a hollow claim to the presidency. 'I am legally and constitutionally still the president of Bophuthatswana,' he said in Kimberley.

THE Transitional Executive Council has appointed a black joint administrator to run Bophuthatswana, Reuter reports. A statement by the South African government and the council said Job Mokgoro would be a joint administrator with Tjaart van der Walt, South Africa's ambassador to the 'homeland'.

Mr Mokgoro was described as an official of the Development Bank of Southern Africa.