South Africa: How to Win-& Lose

The Xhosa tribesmen of Transkei, seeking a Prime Minister for South Africa's first "self-governing" Bantustan (TIME, Nov. 29), last week gave an overwhelming majority of their votes to Paramount Chief Victor Poto. But as it turned out, Poto did not get the job. Instead the office went to Chief Kaizer Matanzima, the candidate preferred by the South African government. Poto wants white men and white investment capital in the Transkei, while Matanzima, a black racist, supports the idea of an all-black state.

The strange result came about in the Transkei's embryo Legislative Assembly, which under the territory's constitution chooses the Prime Minister. Since the Assembly has 64 members appointed by the government and only 45 deputies elected by the voters, the odds were heavily against Poto. Even so, he lost by only five votes. Chief Matanzima claimed a "clean-cut victory," but in fact he will take office with the uneasy knowledge that most of the Transkei's 1,400,000 Xhosa seem to be stubbornly opposed to Matanzima's program of strict racial separation, which he euphemistically calls "peaceful coexistence of the races."