Muldergate affair

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The Muldergate Affair , also known as the Rhoodiegate Affair or the Information Scandal , was a political affair in South Africa from 1977 to 1979, named after Cornelius Petrus Mulder , then Minister of Information in the government of Prime Minister Balthazar Johannes Vorster . It resulted from the discovery of attempts by the South African government to use a number of covert propaganda measures to influence public opinion on apartheid at home and abroad from 1973 at considerable financial expense . The affair, which is sometimes referred to as "South Africa's Watergate ", ended the career of Mulder in the National Party , who had previously been considered one of the most promising contenders to succeed Vorster. In addition, it led to the rise of Pieter Willem Botha , who succeeded Vorster as Prime Minister in 1978.

background

The background to the Muldergate affair were attempts by the South African government to influence public opinion about apartheid both domestically, where it primarily accused the English-language press of a campaign by spreading negative and suppressing positive news, and especially abroad. To this end, Prime Minister Balthazar Johannes Vorster approved a plan by Information Minister Cornelius Petrus Mulder in December 1973 , which proposed the allocation of 64 million South African rand from the defense budget to various covert propaganda projects.

The projects included, for example, bribes to international news and press agencies , the acquisition of the daily newspaper Washington Star in the United States , financial support for the English-language news magazine To the Point and the establishment of a government-friendly English-language daily newspaper in South Africa called The Citizen , in particular as Counterbalance to the influential newspaper Rand Daily Mail . The implementation took place despite protests from the then Defense Minister Pieter Willem Botha . Eschel Rhoodie , who was State Secretary in the Ministry of Information from 1972 to 1977, played a central role .

Detection and Consequences

Mervyn Rees and Chris Day, two journalists for the Rand Daily Mail , exposed the Ministry of Information's activities in 1977 after clues from an anonymous source. After the initial publication, further details emerged that led to the establishment of a parliamentary committee to investigate the ministry's financial affairs, which in 1978 discovered serious irregularities. As a result, Mulder, who in addition to the Ministry of Information also held the position of Minister for Native Administration and Development, had to hand over responsibility for information to Secretary of State Pik Botha . He was also defeated in the elections for the leadership of the National Party to his internal party rival Pieter Willem Botha. In 1978 he also took over the office of Prime Minister from Balthazar Johannes Vorster, who subsequently held the largely representative and uninfluenced position of President .

He resigned from this one year later, after the results of the investigation by a commission set up by Botha had fully revealed his knowledge and consent to the activities of the Ministry of Information. As a result of the Commission's report, Cornelius Petrus Mulder was also expelled from the National Party in 1979, whereupon he resigned from his remaining political offices. Eight years later, he won another parliamentary seat in May 1987 for the Konserwatiewe Party , which after its founding in 1982 had developed into the country's leading opposition party. However, he died of illness around seven months after the election. After fleeing to France in the meantime, Eschel Rhoodie was sentenced to six years' imprisonment for fraud in October 1979, but was acquitted on appeal. He emigrated to the United States in 1982, where he died in 1993.

In addition to its political consequences, the Muldergate affair led to the adoption of regulations requiring newspapers in South Africa to obtain the attorney general's approval before they were allowed to publicize corruption by government institutions or public authorities. Another consequence was that parts of the country's Afrikaans-speaking press gave up their previously government-loyal reporting and took an increasingly critical stance in the years that followed. The politically desired realignment of the press sector resulted from the recommendations of the Steyn Commission .

literature

  • Mervyn Rees, Chris Day: Muldergate. The Story of the Info Scandal. Macmillan, Johannesburg 1980, ISBN 0-86-954089-0
  • Information and / or propaganda. In: James Sanders: South Africa And The International Media 1972−1979: A Struggle For Representation. Routledge, Portland 2000, ISBN 0-71-464979-1 , pp. 54-81
  • The Press during the Apartheid Years. In: Pieter Jacobus Fourie: Media Studies: Media History, Media and Society. Volume 1. Juta and Company Limited, Cape Town 2008, ISBN 0-70-217692-3 , pp. 44-47
  • Information scandal. In: Gwyneth Williams, Brian Hackland: The Dictionary of Contemporary Politics of Southern Africa. Routledge, London 1988, ISBN 0-41-500245-1 , p. 113

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