Projecting himself as a pragmatic conservative who sought gradual reform of the apartheid system, he won the Sept 1989 elections for his party, but with a reduced majority. In Feb 1990 he ended the ban on the African National Congress (ANC) opposition movement and released its effective leader, Nelson Mandela, and by June 1991 he had repealed all racially discriminating laws. After a landslide victory for Mandela and the ANC in the first universal suffrage elections April 1994, De Klerk became second executive deputy president. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace jointly with Mandela 1993. Trained as a lawyer, he entered the South African parliament 1972. He served in the cabinets of B J Vorster and P W Botha 1978-89, replacing P W Botha as party leader Feb 1989 and as state president Aug 1989. He entered into negotiations with the ANC Dec 1991 and in March 1992 a nationwide, whites-only referendum gave him a clear mandate to proceed with plans for major constitutional reform to end white minority rule. In Feb 1993 he and Mandela agreed to the formation of a government of national unity after multiracial elections 1994.
