W. F. de Klerk

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Frederik Willem de Klerk

De Klerk, Frederik Willem, South Africa's last president elected under the system of apartheid, or racial separation. De Klerk along with Nelson Mandela ushered in reforms that ended the nation's era of white minority rule.

De Klerk was born March 18, 1936 in Johannesburg. He was the son of Jan de Klerk, a former cabinet minister and president of South Africa's Senate, and the nephew of J. G. Strijdom, who served as prime minister from 1954 to 1958.

After getting a law degree from Potchefstroom University, de Klerk worked as an attorney in Vereeniging, a city in Transvaal province. He was first elected to South Africa's parliament in 1972 as a National Party representative from Vereeniging. De Klerk in 1978 was named to the cabinet, where he subsequently held several ministerial positions, including posts and telecommunications, environmental planning, internal affairs and education.

In 1982, de Klerk was elected head of the National Party in Transvaal, the country's most populous province. He was chosen the party's national leader in February 1989, and then became president in September 1989 after Pieter W. Botha was forced to resign because of illness and allegations of erratic behavior.

Soon after being named president, de Klerk began dismantling many of the provisions of apartheid and setting the stage for the 1994 multiracial general election. In February 1990 he lifted a 30-year ban on the African National Congress and other black-liberation parties and freed from prison ANC leader Mandela. South Africa's whites endorsed de Klerk's reforms in March 1992; and in 1993, he and Mandela agreed on a timetable for the implementation of majority rule. The two leaders were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize with Mandela in December 1993.

De Klerk and the National Party lost to Mandela and the ANC in the 1994 general elections. De Klerk subsequently served as deputy president under Mandela in a National-ANC coalition government designed to ensure a smooth transition to majority rule. After South Africa approved a new constitution in March 1996, De Klerk left the government and the National Party assumed an opposition role.


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