FW de Klerk’s bold action led to end of apartheid
Tim du Plessis
The state bureaucracy De Klerk inherited in September 1989 on assuming the presidency was similarly demoralised. The political masters had run out of ideas. The SA economy was in tatters and the Afrikaners’ belovedwas a pariah state, banned from international sports and avoided by global entertainers and celebrities. By day the diplomats in foreign lands fought in the trenches, by night they cabled back to Pretoria: we can’t hold the line for much longer.
An earlier undertaking by De Klerk that he would seek the approval of white voters for any major changes to the constitutional order had put him in a tight spot. What if they had vetoed such changes? Would SA have survived? De Klerk’s gamble paid off. Realising the gravity of the moment, opposition white voters swung in behind the yes vote, along with much of civil society, the churches, and business. The yes vote prevailed by a whopping 68.74%.
De Klerk’s political career went mostly downhill after 1994. Succumbing to conservative pressure in his party, in 1996 he prematurely relinquished the deputy-presidency of the country and withdrew the six NP ministers from Mandela’s cabinet — much to their disappointment.
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