P. W. Botha

Pieter Willem Botha, (12 January 1916 – 31 October 2006) was a South African politician.

In 1934, he entered the Grey University College (now the University of the Free State) in Bloemfontein to study law, but left early at the age of twenty in order to pursue a career in politics.

He began working for the National Party as a political organiser in the neighbouring Cape Province.

In the run-up to World War II, Botha joined the Ossewabrandwag, an Afrikaner nationalist group which was sympathetic to the German Nazi Party; but months after the German attack on the USSR, Botha condemned the Ossewabrandwag and changed his ideological allegiance to Christian nationalism.

In 1943, Botha married Anna Elizabeth Rossouw (EliZe).

The couple had two sons and three daughters.

At age 30, Botha was elected head of the National Party Youth in 1946, and two years later was elected to the House of Assembly as representative of George in the southern Cape Province in the general election which saw the beginning of the National Party's 46-year tenure in power.

First elected to Parliament in 1948, Botha was an opponent of black majority rule and international communism.

However, his administration did make concessions towards political reform, whereas internal unrest saw widespread human rights abuses at the hands of his government.

His opponent in the 1948 election was JP Marais from the United Party.

In 1958 Botha was appointed Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs by Hendrik Verwoerd, and in 1961 was appointed to the new Department of Coloured Affairs and became Minister of Community Development.

Though it did not implement a federal system as established in 1961, it implemented what was ostensibly a power-sharing agreement with Coloureds and Indians.

In 1966, Botha was appointed Minister of Defence by Verwoerd and served under the government of John Vorster, upon Verwoerd's murder later that year.

Under his 14 years in charge of the ministry, the South African Defence Force (SADF) reached a zenith, at times consuming 20% of the national budget, compared to 1.3% in 1968, and was involved in the South African Border War.

In 1977, as Minister of Defence, Botha began a secret nuclear weapons program, which culminated in the manufacture of six nuclear bombs, destroyed only in the early 1990s.

He remained steadfast in South Africa's administration of neighbouring territory South-West Africa, particularly while there was a presence of Cuban troops in Angola to the north.

Botha was responsible for introducing the notorious Koevoet police counter-insurgency unit.

He was also instrumental in building the SADF's strength, adding momentum to establishing units such as 32 Battalion.

He served as the last prime minister of South Africa from 1978 to 1984 and the first executive state president of South Africa from 1984 to 1989.

When Vorster resigned following allegations of his involvement in the Muldergate Scandal in 1978, Botha was elected as his successor by the National Party caucus, besting the electorate's favourite, 45-year-old Foreign Minister Pik Botha.

In the final internal ballot, he beat Connie Mulder, the scandal's namesake, in a 78–72 vote.

Botha was keen to promote constitutional reform, and hoped to implement a form of federal system in South Africa that would allow for greater "self-rule" for black homelands (or Bantustans), while still retaining the supremacy of a white central government, and foremost expand the rights of Coloureds (South Africans of mixed ancestry) and Asians in order to widen support for the government.

Upon enacting the reforms, he remarked in the House of Assembly; "We must adapt or die."

Upon becoming Prime Minister, Botha retained the defence portfolio until October 1980, when he appointed SADF Chief General Magnus Malan, his successor.

From his ascension to the cabinet, Botha pursued an ambitious military policy designed to increase South Africa's military capability.

He sought to improve relations with the West – especially the United States – but with mixed results.

He argued that the preservation of the apartheid government, though unpopular, was crucial to stemming the tide of African Communism, which had made in-roads into neighbouring Angola and Mozambique after these two former Portuguese colonies obtained independence.

South African intervention, with support of the rebel UNITA movement (led by Dr. Jonas Savimbi, a personal friend), in the Angolan Civil War continued until the late 1980s, terminating with the Tripartite Accord.

To maintain the nation's military strength, a very strict draft was implemented to enforce compulsory military service for white South African men.

In 1983, Botha proposed a new constitution, which was then put to a vote of the white population.

As Prime Minister and later State President, Botha's greatest parliamentary opponents were Harry Schwarz and Helen Suzman of the Progressive Federal Party until 1987, when his former cabinet colleague Andries Treurnicht's new Conservative Party became the official opposition on a strictly anti-concessionist agenda.

Botha resigned as leader of the ruling National Party (NP) in February 1989 after suffering a stroke and six months later was also coerced to leave the presidency.

In F. W. de Klerk's 1992 apartheid referendum, Botha campaigned for a No vote and denounced De Klerk's administration as irresponsible for opening the door to black majority rule.

In early 1998, when Botha refused to testify at the Mandela government's Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), he was supported by the Conservative Party, which had earlier contested his rule as the official opposition.

For his refusal, he was fined and given a suspended jail sentence.

The sentence was overturned on appeal.

Pieter Willem Botha was born on a farm in the Paul Roux district of the Orange Free State Province (now Free State Province), the son of Afrikaner parents.

His father, Pieter Willem Botha Sr., fought as a commando against the British in the Second Boer War.

His mother, Hendrina Christina Botha (née de Wet), was interned in a British concentration camp during the war.

Botha initially attended the Paul Roux School and matriculated from Bethlehem Voortrekker High School.