· The F.W. De' Klerk Government 1989-94

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·         The F.W. De' Klerk Government 1989-94

·         The retreat of the South African Defense Forces (SADF) from Angola and the refusal of Botha to push ahead with reforms led to the refusal of P.N. Botha in South Africa. He was replaced by F.W de Klerk, first as head of the National Party in February 1989 and then as President in August -September.

·         De' Klerk unlike Bortha was prepared to end in negotiations with the ANC for anew South Africa. Before Botha finally retired, he met Mandela in July but refused to be friendly.

·         The De' Klerk government faced a mass defiance campaign by the Protestant and Catholic churches in early 1980 led by Bishop Desmond Tutu. From April 1989, although the Cuban troops withdrew from Angola, SW APO, guerillas continued war in northern Namibia. On 21^st March 1990, Namibia became an independent republic with a SWAPO government and Sam Nujoma as President.

·         In October 1989, the government released eight ANC leaders including Walter Sisulu and Govan Mbeki from jail. The World's most famous prisoner Nelson Mandela was released after 27 years imprisonment on 11th February 1990.

·         On 2^nd February 1990, negotiations for a new South Africa began with the ANC, PAC, South Africa Communist Party, UDF and COSATU, which were unbanned. The De' Klerk government eventually came to an end in April 1994, with the first ever multiracial election.

·         The National Party (NP).

·         The National Party (NP) was founded in Bloemfontein in 1914 by Afrikaaner nationalists.

·         It was established after the Union of South Africa.

·         It first came to power in 1924, with J.B.M. Hertzog as the Prime Minister.

·         The Hertzog government worked to undermine the coloured (mixed race) vote by granting (1930) voting rights to white women but not to coloured women.

·         In 1934, Hertzog agreed to merge his National Party (NP) with the rival South African Party (SAP) of Jan Smuts to form the United Party (UP).

·         A hardline faction of Afrikaaner nationalists, led by D.F Malan, refused to accept the merger and maintained a rump National Party (NP) called the 'Gesuiwerde Nasional Party (the Purified National Party).

·         Opposition to South African participation in World War II was used by the Purified National Party (PNP) to stir up anti-British imperialist feelings amongst Afrikaaners.

·         This led to a reunification of the Purified Nationalists with the National Party faction that had joined the United Party Fusion in 1934.

·         Together, these political parties formed the Herenigde Nasionale Party (Reunited National Party), which went on to defeat Smuts' United Party in 1948 elections.

·         Upon taking power, the National Party began to implement a program of Apartheid (the legal system of political and social separation of the races/ the policy also intended to maintain and extend political and economic control of south Africa by the white minority.

·         In 1951, the Bantu self Government Act established the so called Homeland! Bantustan policy for ten different black tribes. The goal of the NP was to move all Black South Africans into one of these Homelands, leaving what was left of South Africa (87 percent of land) with what would be a white minority on paper.

·         The Bantu homelands were seen by the racist NP as embryonic independent Nations.

·         All black South Africans registered as citizens of the homelands, not of the nation and were expected to exercise their political rights only in the Homelands.

·         Accordingly, the three (3) Parliamentary Seats - reserved for white representatives of black South Africa in the Cape Province were scrapped.

·         The other three (3) Province Transvaal, the Orange Free State, and Natal had never allowed any black representation.

·         The coloureds were removed from the Common Roll of Cape Province in 1953. Instead of voting for the same representatives as white South Africans, they could now only vote for four (4) white representatives to speak for them.

·         In 1968, the Coloureds were disenfranchised in the place of the set up to advise the government in an amendement to the Separate Representation of Voters Act.

·         In a move unrecognized by the rest of the world, the former German colony of South West Africa (now Namibia) which South Africa had occupied in World War I, was effectively incorporated into South Africa as a Fifth Province, with seven(7) members elected to represent its white citizens in the Parliament of South Africa.

·         The white minority of South West Africa, predominantly German and Afrikaans, considered its interest akin to those of the Afrikaaners in South Africa and therefore supported the National Party in subsequent elections.

·         All the above reforms bolstered the National Party politically, so they removed black and Coloured influence, which was hostile to the National Party from the electoral process and incorporated the Pro- Nationalist whites of South West Africa.

·         The National Party increased its Parliamentary majority in almost every election between 1948 and 1977. Various segregation laws were passed before the National Party took complete power in 1948.

·         Probably the most significant were the Natives Land Act; Number 27% 1913 and the Natives (Urban Areas) Act of 1923. The former Act made it illegal for blacks to purchase or lease land from the whites except in reserves.

·         Many segregation laws passed by the National Party (NP) after 1948 included, the Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act, the Immorality Act, the Population Registration Act and the Group Areas Act, which prohibited non- whites males from being in certain areas of the country unless they were employed there.

·         Another goal was achieved in 1960, when the -.white population voted in a Referendum to sever South Africa's ties with the British Monarchy and establish a Republic, which Jed to South Africa's withdrawal from the Common Wealth.

·         The National Party (NP) won a majority of Parliamentary seats in all elections during the Apartheid area.

·         Its popular vote record was more mixed: while it won the popular vote with a comfortable margin in most general elections, the National Party (NP) carried less than 50% of the electorate with support of 64.8% of the white voters and 134 seats in Parliament out of 165.

·         After this election, the NP support declined as a proliferation of rightwing parties siphoned off important segments of its traditional voter base.

·         Throughout its reign, the NP's support came mainly from the Afrikaaners but Anglo-Afrikaans were courted by and increasingly voted for the National Party (NP) after 1960.

·         Beginning in the early 1980's under the leadership of President P.N. Botha, the NP began 0 reform its polices. Brotha legalized interracial marriages and multiracial political parties and relaxed the Group Areas Act.

·         Brotha also granted a measure of political representation to Coloureds and Indians by creating separate Parliamentary Chambers in which they had control of their own affairs'

·         Black South Africans were not included and over national affairs, he ensured that the white chamber of Parliament retained the last word in all matters.

·         The representatives of the white Chamber had a compulsory block-vote in the Electoral College to choose the state President, who had the say over which of the three (3) Chambers, or which combination of them, should consider any piece of Legislation.

·         On the central issue of granting meaningful political rights to black South Africans, Brotha and the National Party refused to budge, most black political organizations remaining banned, and Mandela remaining imprisoned.

·         In the midst of rising political instability, growing economic problems and diplomatic isolation, Brotha resigned as the National Party (NP) leader and subsequently as state President in 1989.

·         He was replaced by F.W. De’Klerk, Although a Conservative, De’Klerk realized the impracticality of maintaining apartheid forever, and soon after taking power, he decoded that it would be better to negotiate while there was still time to reach a compromise, than to hold out until forced to negotiate on less favorable terms later.

·         De'Klerk persuaded the NP to enter into negotiations with representatives of the black community.

·         Late in 1989, the NP won the most bitterly contested election in decades, pledging to negotiate an end to the Apartheid system that it itself had established.

·         Early in 1990, the ANC, was legalized and Nelson Mandela was released after 27 years of imprisonment.

·         A Referendum in 1992 gave De'klerk Plenipotentiary powers to negotiate with Mandela. Following the negotiations a new Constitution was drawn up and multiracial elections were held in 1994.

·         These elections were won by the ANC. The NP remained in government, however, as a Coalition partner to the ANC in the Government of National Unity until 1997 when it withdrew to become the official opposition.

·         In 1997, the National Party also remained itself the Ne\f National Party in order to distance itself from its past (deeds).

·         The NP lasted less than a decade before its Federal Council voted to dissolve the Party on 9^th April 2005, following a decision the previous year to merge with the ANC political party.