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Thursday, November 2, 1995 Page 2
Historic vote to reshape South Africa
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa
— Voters reshaped South Africa
Wednesday, putting blacks in charge
of cities and towns that had once been
white preserves.
It was the first time South Africa
has had local elections with all the
country’s races taking part and only
the second time blacks have been al
lowed to vote.
The first, in April 1994, brought
President Nelson Mandela to power
and ended white minority rule at the
national level. But at the local level
there were still no black elected offi
cials, although some black mayors
had been appointed as transitional
leaders.
“This is the completion of the
democratic process that we began”
last year, Mandela said on a visit to a
polling station in the Atteridgeville
black township outside Pretoria.
Voting for almost 700 local and
rural councils was marred in some
areas by improper ballots, late offi
cials and even a hungry elephant.
Some people went to the wrong poll
ing stations or found their names were
not on the registration lists, slowing
the process and provoking angry con
frontations.
Election officials expressed satis
faction with the voting, calling it gen
erally smoother than the problem
plagued national vote last year. But
in some areas, long lines formed out
side the polling places and the slow
pace meant voting continued well af
ter polls were to have closed.
“I want to live in a safe place, to
be comfortable. To have a house, a
street,"’ said Winnie Cebu, a student
living in a squatter camp south of
Johannesburg.
Cebu arrived armed with a blan
ket, a tin pot of coffee and a deck of
cards three hours before polls opened.
Still, she was far from first in line at
three green and yellow tents set up
on a soccer field as polls for the Phola
Park camp.
Results are expected today, but
there is little doubt the winners will
be with few exceptions black — if
only because most of the candidates
are black.
Elias Maluleke was pleased sev
eral candidates running for his com
munity council in Johannesburg were
neighbors.
“I’ve met them; I’ve sat and dis
cussed with them. I know what they
want out of life,” said Maluleke, who
is black.
Tommy Swanepoel, a white retired
policeman, feared white conserva
tives would lose control in his town
— Ventersdorp, the headquarters of
the neo-Nazi Afrikaner Resistance
Movement, west of Johannesburg.
“The biggest thing here is to make
sure the white wards are still run by
whites,” he said. “We already pay all
the taxes here, and the blacks want
us to pay over there too. They think
we’re all Father Christmas.”
Mandela himself didn’t vote
Wednesday because he had registered
in Cape Town. Disputes over districts’
boundaries postponed voting until
next year in KwaZulu-Natal province
and the Cape Town metropolitan area.
Procedural problems also postponed
“77iis is the completion of the democratic process
that we began ” last year.
NELSON MANDELA
South African president
balloting in some isolated rural areas,
which will hold elections later this
year or next year.
Going into the election, turnout
had been expected to be low because
of voter apathy and confusion over a
dual ballot that asks people to vote
for a candidate and then a party.
Many South Africans also com
plained Mandela’s government had
failed to deliver on promises of jobs
and houses and questioned why they
should vote again.
“Most of us, we don’t want to vote
because the government doesn’t want
to do anything for us,” said
Mongezeleli Nqilo, 27, outside a poll
ing station in the Kayamandi black
township near Stellenbosch in West
ern Cape province.
Among the logistical problems at
some polling places were improper
ballot papers, missing materials, late
officials and even a lack of electric
ity.
Election officer Piet van Rooyen
said the process was slowed in the
area just southeast of Johannesburg
because his staff had to argue with
people whose names weren’t on the
register.
Meshack Mangike’s name was
missing from a list of registered vot
ers at the polling station closest to his
home, and he was sent to another
nearby.
“If I don’t find my name here, I’ll
just go home and go to sleep,” he said.
Nebraskan
Editor j. Christopher Hain Night News Editors Julie Sobczyk
472-1766 Matt Waite
Managing Editor Rainbow Rowell Doug Peters
Assoc. News Editors DeDra Janssen Chad Lorenz
Brian Sharp Art Director Mike Stover
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ALL MATERIAL COPYRIGHT 1995 DAILY NEBRASKAN
Introducing the kind of grille
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Use this coupon
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$ 5.00 Off
dinner for 2 or
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Open 6:30 a.m. -10:00 p.m. Sunday through Thursday/
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Not to be used with any other promotion. Valid through 11/12/95
Value = $5.00
Campus upset by mistaken
detention of black students
MIDDLETOWN, Conn. — Four black stu
dents at Wesleyan University were taken into
custody by police while walking down a street
in the middle of the night. Their only offense:
They would not produce their student IDs.
The handcuffed students were released as
soon as they arrived at police headquarters,
where a sergeant said a mistake had been made.
They also received a formal apology.
But the early Tuesday incident left the stu
dents shaken and angry, and college adminis
trators said they would use it to educate the
community about a problem common to soci
ety as a whole.
“We were violated to the extreme,” Umi
NiiLampti, an 18-year-old freshman from At
lanta, said Wednesday. “It wasn’t justified.”
Blacks make up about 9 percent of the stu
dent body at Wesleyan, an elite liberal arts col
lege with about 2,700 undergraduate and 300
graduate students.
In Middletown, a city of about 43,000,
blacks make up about 11 percent of the popu
lation.
Another student involved, Marked Parker,
19, of New York City, wouldn’t comment; The
other two, sophomores Bishara Wilson, 19, also
of New York, and Tarik Holder, 19, of West
Hempstead, N.Y., didn’t return telephone calls.
The confrontation came when an officer
spotted the four in the middle of a public street
near dormitories, police said. When the officer
asked the students to move aside, they did, but
they did not respond when asked if they were
students.
The officer followed them and contacted
campus police. Stopped again, the young men
said they were students but declined to pro
duce their ID cards, police said. With campus
security present, the students were handcuffed
and taken to the police station.
A sergeant released the students, informing
the unidentified officer that there were no
grounds for charges. Police Lt. Christopher
Barrow went to campus and met with the stu
dents soon after to apologize.
Capt. Robert Clayton, who is leading an
internal investigation, said there was no cause
for their detention and the students did not have
to produce their ID cards.
About 120 black students met on campus
Tuesday night to talk about the racial implica
tions of the incident.
“We’re talking about an issue that is not
Wesleyan per se,” said Gayle Pemberton, chair
woman of the college’s African-American stud
ies program. “It’s a much larger problem than
that; it’s a 20th-century problem.”
Clinton, Republicans discuss budget
WASHINGTON — President Clinton and
Republican congressional leaders met face to
face on their budget impasse Wednesday,
emerging with no specific agreements but
speaking positively about the chances of tem
porarily avoiding a federal default.
“We agreed there’s an immediate problem,
the debt ceiling," House Speaker Newt
Gingrich, R-Ga., told reporters after the hour
long session attended also by Democratic con
gressional leaders. “We want to be helpful on
that We’re trying to work out a way to work
together.”
Gingrich and Senate Majority Leader Bob
Dole, R-Kan., said Republicans were consid
ering extending the government’s soon-to-ex
pire borrowing authority into early December,
shortly after they hope to send Clinton a final
version of their seven-year, budget-balancing
package.
Republicans earlier had considered an ex
tension through Nov. 29. But they revised that
Wednesday because the government has a huge
payment due Dec. 1, when it mails out Social
Security checks.
The conciliatory words on the debt limit
contrasted with remarks Gingrich made ear
lier in the day, when he said Wall Street inves
tors had told Republicans that “the market
would shrug it off’ if the government went into
default, something that has never happened.
That conflicts with the views of Democrats
and most economists, who say a federal fail
ure to pay its creditors would spark higher in
terest rates and an unforeseeable reaction by
financial markets.
Clinton and GOP leaders agreed to meet
again, which could only be a positive sign amid
the heated exchanges the budget battle has pro
duced in recent weeks.
“Both sides understand each other better
now than they did three hours ago,” said White
House spokesman Mike McCurry. The last time
Clinton and GOP congressional leaders met on
the budget was Sept. 12.
But neither side indicated any movement
toward solving the standoff over the GOP’s
plans to balance the budget over seven years
by paring Medicare, Medicaid and other so
cial programs while providing a $245 billion
tax cut.
Clinton has said he will veto the Republi
can budget-balancing measure, which House
and Senate negotiators are trying to shape into
a compromise, bicameral bill. The president
has said the plan’s spending cuts are too se
vere and its tax reduction too generous.
Republicans said they stuck to their insis
tence that the budget and the debt limit be
linked. They plan to include a long-term ex
tension of borrowing authority in their budget
balancing bill to put pressure on Clinton to sign
it.
But the administration continued to insist
that the two issues be separated, and that Re
publicans drop their plans for some spending
cuts.
