Chris Heunis
Jan Christiaan Heunis (born April 20, 1927 in Uniondale , Cape Province , † January 27, 2006 in Somerset West ) was a South African politician of the National Party (NP). During the apartheid period from 1979 to 1989 he was Minister for various areas under Balthazar Johannes Vorster and Pieter Willem Botha and was the incumbent President of South Africa from January to March 1989 . One of his most important contributions to political life in South Africa in 1984 was the establishment of a three-chamber parliament , through which the population groups referred to as “ colored ” and “ Asians ” were granted limited power participation in addition to the white inhabitants, without the black majority population consider. Along with other measures, this was seen as an attempt to secure the continued existence of the apartheid system through changes to the constitution and the structure of the state.
Life
Chris Heunis was born in Uniondale in 1927 and initially worked as a lawyer from 1951 . In 1970 he was elected to the South African parliament for the first time. Four years later he took over his first government office with the Ministry of Asian Affairs and Tourism, after which he was Minister of the Interior from 1980 to 1982. After being appointed a member of a government commission to investigate constitutional issues in 1979, he became Minister for Constitutional Affairs in 1982. In this function he was largely responsible for the creation of the tricameral parliament , in which the existing chamber, in whose elections only the white inhabitants of South Africa participated ( House of Assembly ), was supplemented by two further chambers for those who were considered " colored " ( House of Representatives ) and " Asians " ( House of Delegates ) designated population groups. This legally complex system, in which the House of Assembly of the whites continued to be the determining chamber, was seen as an attempt to maintain the apartheid system through the conditional participation of other sections of the population in power .
Chris Heunis was best known as “Minister for Everything” and through long and complex speeches on constitutional issues. In September 1986 he was elected chairman of the National Party in the Cape Province , succeeding Pieter Willem Botha , then President of the country . This election in the most influential of the four NP provincial associations made him one of the favorites to succeed Botha as president. The following year, however, he defended his parliamentary seat with only 39 votes ahead of his opponent Dennis Worrall, a former ambassador of South Africa to Great Britain , who had previously also belonged to the NP and was running for the newly founded Independent Party . Like Heunis, Worrall was considered an expert on constitutional issues. Worrall's candidacy and his surprisingly good performance were therefore a serious setback for his ambitions for the presidency and for his ideas about the future of the constitutional order in South Africa, despite the election victory of Heunis.
Chris Heunis was temporarily acting President of South Africa from January to March 1989 after a minor stroke from Pieter Willem Bothas. In the same year, however, after the election of Frederik Willem de Klerk as president, he withdrew from politics disaffected and founded a law firm in Somerset West with one of his sons . An expression of his disappointment was his testimony to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission that came into being after the end of apartheid that he would “try to forget that he was ever politically active”. Honors received throughout his life included honorary citizenship of the City of George and a number of other awards. In Somerset West, where he died in 2006, an old people's home was named after him. He was married and the father of four sons and one daughter.
Honors (selection)
- Honorary Doctor of Philosophy, Stellenbosch University
- Member of the University Council of Stellenbosch University
- Honorary lieutenant-colonel , South African Police
- several medals from the South African police
- Brilliant Star with Grand Cordon , Taiwan
- Honorary President of the Historic Somerset West Society
- Patron of the Production Management Institute of South Africa
- 1980: South African Decoration for Meritorious Service.
Web links
- Short biography
- Sapa: Chris Heunis this . In: Mail & Guardian online . Obituary dated January 28, 2006
- Chris Heunis . In: Times Online . Obituary dated February 3, 2006
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c Sapa: Chris Heunis dies . News from January 28, 2006 on www.mg.co.za (English)
- ↑ a b c d Shelag Gastrow: Who's Who in South African Politics . Johannesburg 1986 p. 112
- ^ World Biographical Encyclopedia: Jan Christiaan Heunis . on www.prabook.com (English)
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Heunis, Chris |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Heunis, Jan Christiaan (full name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | South African politician during the apartheid period |
| DATE OF BIRTH | April 20, 1927 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Uniondale |
| DATE OF DEATH | January 27, 2006 |
| Place of death | Somerset West |