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                                                                                WORLD, Page 34

SOUTH AFRICA

Yes!


Voters in what should be the last whites-only election support
sharing power with the black majority. Can De Klerk and Mandela
make it happen?

By BRUCE W. NELAN -- Reported by Peter Hawthorne/Cape Town and
Scott MacLeod/Johannesburg


    A victory of such magnitude on an issue so fundamental
could easily push a political leader toward hyperbole. But
President F.W. de Klerk was not exaggerating a bit when he said
in Cape Town after last week's referendum, "Today we have closed
the book on apartheid."

    Many more books will have to be written before the
country's problems are solved. But white South Africans --
including a majority of the Afrikaans-speaking descendants of
the original Dutch settlers -- voted resoundingly for continuing
negotiations with their black compatriots on a new constitution.
At least 85% of the registered voters turned out, and 68.6% of
them said yes to the talks, aimed at creating a new political
system in which the black majority will participate fully.

    Even De Klerk and his government were surprised at the
2-to-1 mandate for reform. A population widely perceived as the
most stubbornly racist in the world was effectively agreeing to
give up its monopoly on power and share it with a black
majority that whites have traditionally feared, persecuted and
patronized. "Good and sensible people must be breathing sighs
of relief," was the verdict of Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu.
Others agreed. "South Africa is a different country today,"
blared Business Day, Johannesburg's financial daily. Approved
the Sowetan, the largest black daily: "Whites did the right
thing."

    In spite of the triumph of reform at the ballot box, De
Klerk's main negotiating partner, Nelson Mandela, president of
the African National Congress (A.N.C.), could not share the
euphoria. The country's 30 million black citizens still suffer
profound inequalities in housing, education, medical care and
other basic necessities. As Mandela watched whites streaming to
the polls, he said, "I still cannot vote in my own country." But
when it was over, he smiled and said at last, "I am very
pleased."

    White South Africans voted their fears, their hopes and
their wallets. Business leaders joined De Klerk's de facto
alliance with the liberal Democratic Party, chipping in for a
massive advertising campaign that predicted renewed
international sanctions and economic disaster in the event of
a no vote. One ad, recalling the cancellation of landing rights
abroad for South African Airways, depicted a deserted runway
with the caption, "Without reform, South Africa isn't going
anywhere."

    Another ad showed an empty cricket ground and advised,
"Without reform, South Africa hasn't got a sporting chance."
That was a particularly telling shot. One of the sanctions that
most pained and angered South Africans over many years was the
ban on their participation in international sports, especially
cricket and rugby. In the days leading up to the referendum, a
rehabilitated South African national cricket team had won a
place in the semifinals of the World Cup. Sport-centered South
Africans knew that the team, on its first overseas tour in 22
years, would have to pull out if the referendum failed. More
than a few votes were strongly influenced by the thought.

    The naysayers to the referendum, led by the right-wing
Conservative Party, had little to offer but a return to
apartheid. Arguing that the government's course would lead to
political and cultural annihilation for the country's 5 million
whites, party leader Andries Treurnicht forged an alliance that
included the neo-Nazi Afrikaner Resistance Movement, a link that
may have damaged the Conservative cause. Former President P.W.
Botha, now 76 and retired, also urged a no vote. "I cannot," he
said, "support a reform process that leads to the suicide of my
people." But even the largely Afrikaner voting district of
George, which includes Botha's former parliamentary
constituency, went for reform 65% to 35%.

    In the end, most whites decided, for their own reasons,
that they had to back the government, though clearly many have
yet to confront the fact that a transfer of power is likely to
be accompanied by a redistribution of wealth within the
country. "Change," said golf pro Gary Player, "is the price of
survival."

    A jubilant De Klerk, welcoming the result on his 56th
birthday, called it "the real birthday of the real new South
African nation." His position is now immensely strengthened.
Until last week he had been trying to enforce his reforms from
the top down. But he had lost three parliamentary by-elections
in the past nine months to pro-apartheid Conservatives, and he
could claim no clear popular mandate to negotiate whites out of
their exclusive grip on power.

    Now he can. The 2.8 million people who voted could not
have been under any illusion about the choices before them.
Like Mandela, De Klerk saw the paradox in the all-white vote.
"There is an element of justice," he said, "that we who started
this long chapter in our history" had been called upon to end
it.

    More than half of the country's 3 million Afrikaners
backed reform, though support from English speakers, who tend
generally to be more liberal, was the basis of De Klerk's
unexpectedly sweeping success. Of 15 regions, only the Afrikaner
bastion of Pietersburg, in the drought-stricken farmland of
Northern Transvaal, registered a no, 57% to 43%. Even the
blue-collar mining towns around Johannesburg said yes, though
by a narrow margin.

    While it was a famous victory, the euphoria was
short-lived, giving way to the familiar problems of recession,
urban crime and political warfare in the townships, where more
than 300 blacks were killed in power struggles during the three
weeks leading up to the referendum. Confrontation also resumed
on the political front. Three days after the vote, Mandela
vowed to halt the government's plan to put a 10% tax on basic
foods and threatened to engineer a series of strikes and
protests "even if we destroy the economy." The government has
no right to impose such taxes, he said. "They must get our
express approval."

    If strikes by black workers could bring down the economy,
they probably would have done so years ago. Still, the economy
is in serious trouble, battered by sanctions, recession and
capital flight. The growth rate has averaged barely 1% a year
during the past 10 years. Taking population increases into
account, that has actually meant a 1.3% annual loss in per
capita domestic output. By the end of last year, 4.7 million
adults, or 47% of the work force, mostly black, were unemployed,
and the inflation rate stood at 16%.

    Though most countries have lifted their economic
sanctions, South Africa desperately needs new investment. The
A.N.C. says the country would need a 9% annual growth rate to
absorb all those entering the labor market. But financial
analysts in Johannesburg say growth of even 4% a year would
demand about $7 billion a year in investment from abroad. It is
slow in coming because of apprehension about the political
future and how soon it will arrive. De Klerk wants to get to the
future as soon as possible. "We should not waste any time," he
says. "The uncertainty that bothers so many will only go away
if you put a negotiated solution on the table."

    Measurable steps toward that solution began in December,
when 19 political groups representing all races created a forum
called the Convention for a Democratic South Africa (CODESA).
It set up five working groups, and one of them reached agreement
on "basic principles" involved in establishing an interim
government. When CODESA's second plenary session is held next
month, A.N.C. officials say, agreement on an interim government
could be reached. "It will," says Mandela, "supervise the
transition from an apartheid to a democratic state."

    Just how the interim authority will be created is still
not clear. According to one scenario gaining currency,
Parliament could amend the present constitution to transfer
power from the all-white Cabinet to a government of national
unity. De Klerk, however, has said he must retain control of the
government until agreement is reached on the text of a new
constitution.

    To write the constitution, the A.N.C. is calling for a
"constituent assembly," while De Klerk speaks of "a transitional
parliament." If negotiations succeed, the two concepts could
turn out to be roughly the same. The A.N.C. is hoping to come
up with a constitution a year from now, while De Klerk says the
parties have until 1994, when the next national election must
be held under the present constitution.

    Despite continuing public arguments, the two sides have
agreed on some of the points De Klerk describes as his "bottom
line," including devolution of significant governmental power
to provincial and local levels. He predicts that "some tough
negotiations lie ahead." The biggest gap is between the A.N.C.'s
unyielding demand for majority rule and De Klerk's concept of
"power sharing." To him, that must mean constitutional
provisions for including minority -- that is, white -- parties
in the executive branch and providing them with an effective
veto over vital legislation.

    De Klerk, wary of the A.N.C.'s long-standing association
with Communism, also wants a constitutional provision for a
"market-oriented economic system." The A.N.C. opposes the
provision but denies it is wedded to a plan for blanket
nationalization of South Africa's biggest corporations. "There
is nothing in the thinking of the A.N.C. that says we must
nationalize," says Thabo Mbeki, one of the group's chief
negotiators.

    The President has said several times that he regarded the
referendum as the country's last exercise in all-white voting.
Even so, he has suggested that if the A.N.C. does not go along
with his bottom-line items, he would have to submit the outcome
of the negotiations to whites for another possible veto. "We
will continue negotiating," he said, "until we are satisfied
that a new constitution will be able to accommodate the needs
arising from the complexity of our society."

    De Klerk called the referendum last week for two reasons.
The first was to obtain a clear mandate for reform, and he got
it. The second was to demonstrate the intellectual bankruptcy
of the right wing. On that he was also successful, largely
discrediting the Conservatives, but they and those who are even
more extreme have not yet rolled over. Party leader Treur nicht
insists that "the struggle for our freedom and survival
continues" and says he will refuse renewed invitations to join
the CODESA talks.

    De Klerk's advisers are concerned that some of the 876,000
who voted no may turn to terrorism and cause both physical and
political damage. But De Klerk pledges to take a stand against
ultraright forces and not to allow them to derail his plans for
reform. "I expect a small radical core group will not just lie
down and accept it," he says, "and will be thinking of doing
some wild things. But that is what the law is for, and we will
apply the law."

    He now knows the majority of Afri kaners want him to
succeed, to restore the country to peace and prosperity and end
its pariah status. "Afrikaners have become Africans," says
Frederik van Zyl Slabbert, former leader of the liberal
opposition in Parliament. "They cannot continue standing apart.
De Klerk has said, Forget it. We tried that and it didn't work."

    Sampie Terreblanche, a professor of economics at
Stellenbosch University, was long one of the ruling National
Party's policy planners. He rebelled against P.W. Botha's
autocratic rule and helped move the party toward moderation.
"There was always this attitude that the world can go to hell,''
he says. "Now Afrikaners have become aware of the outside
world." De Klerk and Mandela are hoping that all white South
Africans have finally, permanently come out of the laager and
into the world.