THEPOLITICALTRANSITION
emergency, ineluctable processes were undermining
the regime's long-
term prospects. One was demographic.
According to official census re-
ports, the white population
of South Africa (including the Homelands)
dropped from its peak of 2 I percent of the total in 1936 to 15 percent in
1985. In 1988, officials estimated that by the year 2005 Whites would
form only 10 percent of the population.
(In fact, it sank to that level by
1999.) Moreover, the African surge to the cities, propelled by the rapid in-
crease of the African population
and the persistent deterioration
of the
Homelands,
was continuing
unabated.
Even though most newcomers
were living in shacks without electricity or water, the African population
of the townships doubled from 5.2 million to 10.6 million between 1951
and 1980. Demographers foresaw that by the year 2000, Africans would
outnumber Whites by five to one in the urban areas.?
.
Second, the economy was structurally unsound, and South Africa was
in a deep recession. The apartheid state was an extravagance, with three
parliamentary chambers, fourteen departments of education, health, and
welfare (one for each "race" at the national level, one for each province,
and one for each Homeland), large military and security establishments,