Word: parliament
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...Shah's attempts at political reform have been less thorough. He reopened Parliament in 1963, but uses it mostly for window dressing. All candidates must be approved by SAVAK, his powerful security police, and elections are so arranged as to give the Shah's Iran Novin (New Iran) Party an overwhelming majority of the seats. The Shah, in fact, makes little pretense of being a democrat. "For 2,500 years," he says, "we have had a monarchical system, which implies a certain amount of imposed authority." His word is law, and he keeps his Prime Minister, Amirabass Hoveida...
...Suzman entered Parliament in 1953 after winning an uncontested seat as a member of the United Party--the official opposition to the government's Nationalist Party. During the following six years, she became increasingly disenchanted with her party's "opposition" to the blossoming racist regime. After attempting reform from within, Mrs. Suzman and 12 of her colleagues broke from the UP in 1959 and formed the Progressive Party. The subsequent elections in '61 were a disaster for the Progressive Party: only Mrs. Suzman survived, and since then she has remained the sole voice against apartheid...
Although Mrs. Suzman is probably not very popular among members of Parliament, the government is pleased that it can point to her and say that she proves Vorster's regime is not wholly repressive. However fallacious this logic may seem, Mrs. Suzman feels that the advantages of having an official mouthpiece in Parliament far outweigh any propaganda mileage that the government may be able to make out of her presence...
...either (a) have reached a certain level of education (b) have attained a certain income level or own property, or (c) are married to someone who qualifies in either of these areas--would be classified as "A" voters and would elect about 80 per cent of the members of Parliament. The "B" grade voters would be everyone else who is literate and they would select only twenty per cent of the MP's. Mrs. Suzman says that this system is a practical compromise between the one-man-one-vote program which the Liberal Party advocates. The Liberal Party, more radical...
...Suzman says that her basic function is to keep a toe-hold in Parliament, kep the channels of information open, and try to counter the reactionary trend in South Africa. The conflict in Vietnam has taken much of the world attention and odium away from the regime in South Africa, but Mrs. Suzman hopes to keep a minimum of pressure on the government until inflation forces the Afrikaners into economic integration...