Why de Klerk chose reform
FW de Klerk became leader of the National Party in February 1989 and acting State President that August. He was confirmed in the post in September. He had a record as a cautious, conservative minister. Yet within six months he had done what PW Botha never dared. Four pressures, working together, explain why.
💰 Economic crisis and sanctions
De Klerk took over an economy in deep trouble. Remember, sanctions and the foreign banks had cut South Africa off from new loans and investment. Prices were rising by about 15 per cent a year, unemployment was growing, and the state could hardly afford its army, its police and the homelands. Business leaders told the government plainly that there would be no recovery until sanctions ended, and sanctions would not end while apartheid and the ban on the ANC remained.
✊ Unrest
Four years of emergency rule had not broken resistance. On the day of the white election, 6 September 1989, more than 20 people were reported killed in police action in the townships around Cape Town. A week later de Klerk made a telling choice. Instead of banning a protest march through Cape Town led by Desmond Tutu and Allan Boesak, he allowed it, and about 30,000 people marched peacefully.
The end of the Cold War was the pressure that decided the timing. For forty years the National Party had told white voters, and its friends in Britain and the USA, that the ANC was a tool of Soviet communism. In 1989 that argument collapsed.
- In December 1988 South Africa agreed to leave Namibia, and Cuban troops agreed to leave Angola. Under the same deal the ANC had to close its army camps in Angola. Namibia became independent in March 1990.
- The Soviet Union, short of money under Mikhail Gorbachev, was cutting its help to allies abroad, including the ANC.
- On 9 November 1989 the Berlin Wall was opened, and communist governments fell across Eastern Europe.
This changed de Klerk's thinking in two ways. The fear of a communist takeover, which had been used to justify the ban on the ANC, no longer convinced anyone, so Western governments had no reason left to protect South Africa. And the ANC had lost its main supplier of weapons and training. De Klerk judged that the ANC was now weaker than it had been for years, so this was the best moment for the National Party to bargain. His aim was not to hand over power. He hoped for a new constitution in which whites shared power and kept strong protection as a minority.
The ANC had also shown that it was ready to talk. In the Harare Declaration of August 1989 it set out what the government must do before negotiations could begin.
Key terms:
- Unbanning: lifting the legal ban on an organisation so that it can work openly again
- Political prisoner: someone held in prison because of their political beliefs or actions against the government
- Harare Declaration (1989): the ANC's statement, backed by other African states, listing its conditions for talks, such as releasing political prisoners, lifting the bans and ending the State of Emergency
- Repeal: to cancel a law so that it no longer applies
The speech of 2 February 1990
De Klerk began with small steps. In October 1989 he released eight long-term political prisoners, including Walter Sisulu. In December he met Nelson Mandela for the first time. Then, opening parliament in Cape Town on 2 February 1990, he stunned the country. He announced that:
- the bans on the ANC, the PAC and the South African Communist Party were lifted at once
- emergency restrictions on 33 other organisations, including the UDF and COSATU, were ended
- people in prison only for belonging to a banned organisation would be freed
- executions were suspended
- Nelson Mandela would be released without conditions.
The speech met some of the conditions in the Harare Declaration, though the State of Emergency stayed in place for a few more months. After thirty years, the ANC was legal again. Its leaders could come home from exile, open offices, hold rallies and sign up members.
The release of Mandela, February 1990
On the afternoon of 11 February 1990 Mandela walked out of Victor Verster Prison, near Paarl, hand in hand with his wife Winnie. He had been a prisoner for 27 years. That evening he spoke to a huge crowd from the balcony of Cape Town City Hall: 'I stand here before you not as a prophet but as a humble servant of you, the people.'
He called de Klerk 'a man of integrity', but he said the armed struggle was not yet over and asked the world to keep its sanctions until apartheid was gone. The release mattered because the government now had someone to negotiate with: a leader trusted by most black South Africans and respected abroad. The first formal meeting between the government and the ANC took place in Cape Town in May 1990. In August the ANC suspended its armed struggle.
The repeal of the apartheid laws, 1990-91
With talks under way, de Klerk took apart the laws that Botha had left standing.
📜 What went
The Separate Amenities Act was repealed in October 1990, so beaches, parks, buses and libraries were legally open to all. On 1 February 1991 de Klerk told parliament that the remaining pillars of apartheid would go. In June 1991 parliament repealed the Land Acts of 1913 and 1936, the Group Areas Act and the Population Registration Act. People could now live and own land anywhere, and babies were no longer classified by race.
⏳ What was left
Apartheid as a system of law was over, but Africans still had no vote in national elections, and the homelands still existed. Only a new constitution could change that. Repeal also could not undo the damage of forty years. A family was now free to buy a house in a former white suburb, but few had the money. Schools, housing and land remained deeply unequal.
Abroad, South Africa's isolation began to end. In July 1991 President George Bush lifted the American sanctions of 1986, and the International Olympic Committee let South Africa back in, so that it competed at the Barcelona Olympics in 1992. What happened next is covered in the lesson Negotiating the End: Mandela, de Klerk and Others.
Common mistakes
Don't say apartheid ended when Mandela was released. The main laws were not repealed until June 1991, and black South Africans could not vote until 1994. Don't say de Klerk reformed because he had always opposed apartheid: he acted because of pressure and because he thought the time was right to bargain.
Exam-style question
Explain two effects of FW de Klerk's speech of 2 February 1990 on South Africa. [8 marks]
Model answer
One effect of the speech was that the ANC could work openly again and negotiations became possible. De Klerk lifted the bans on the ANC and the PAC, which had been illegal for thirty years, and on the Communist Party, and promised to free Nelson Mandela. Nine days later, on 11 February 1990, Mandela walked out of Victor Verster Prison after 27 years. Because its leaders were now free and legal, the ANC could return from exile and sit down with the government, and the first formal meeting took place in May 1990. This led the ANC to suspend its armed struggle that August.
A second effect was the repeal of the apartheid laws. Once de Klerk had accepted that he must negotiate with the ANC, laws that separated the races could not be defended. The Separate Amenities Act went in October 1990, and in June 1991 parliament repealed the Land Acts, the Group Areas Act and the Population Registration Act. This meant people were no longer classified by race or told where they could live. As a result South Africa's isolation began to end: in July 1991 the USA lifted its sanctions and South Africa was allowed back into the Olympics.
What lifts this to the top level: it gives two separate effects, backs each with exact dates and names, and uses linking phrases (because, this led, this meant, as a result) to show how the speech produced each effect.
Exam tip
However well you write about Mandela's release, one effect alone cannot score more than 4 of the 8 marks. Pick two effects that are clearly different, such as one political and one legal, and give each its own paragraph. For more help, see the Exam Skills lesson Paper 1 Question (b): Explain Two Effects.