African imports, and threatening to cut off military aid to allies suspected
of breaching the international
arms embargo against South Africa.
In South Africa, meanwhile, the government's reforms, combined with
widespread
black resistance, evoked a political backlash among white
bureaucrats
who lived by administering
apartheid,
semiskilled workers
threatened
by black competition,
and ideologues steeped in racist sim-
plicities. The Conservative party, led by Andries Treurnicht, a former cabi-
net minister, was cutting into the government's majorities in by-elections
on a platform of strict Verwoerdian apartheid. Still further
t~ the right was
the Herstigte Nasionale party (Reestablished National party), and beyond
that, the Afrikaner Weerstand
Beweging (Afrikaner Resistance Move-
ment), an extraparliamentary
group, used swastika-like
symbols and
broke up government meetings.U
The government's problems were compounded by a deteriorating eco-
nomic situation, engendered in large part by the political uncertainty and
the withdrawal
of foreign investment. The annual rate of inflation rose
from II
percent in 1983 to 13.25 percent in 1984, 16.·2 percent in 1985,
and 18.6 percent in 1986. Real growth per capita declined in 1985 and
1986. Unemployment was rising continuously.V