F. W. de Klerk
F. W. de Klerk was the last president of apartheid South Africa and the man who dismantled it. Born in Johannesburg in 1936 into the heart of the National Party establishment — his father was a cabinet minister and his uncle a prime minister — he trained as a lawyer and entered parliament in 1972. His record through the 1970s and 1980s was conservative. He held education, energy and internal affairs portfolios, defended segregated universities, and was regarded as belonging to the party's right when he became leader in February 1989 after P. W. Botha suffered a stroke. He then did what nobody expected. On 2 February 1990, in the opening speech to parliament, he lifted the ban on the African National Congress, the Pan Africanist Congress and the Communist Party, suspended executions, and announced Nelson Mandela's release, which followed nine days later. His reasons were a combination: sanctions and capital flight had made the economy unsustainable, the Cold War's end removed the communist threat that had justified repression, and he had concluded that reform from strength was better than collapse. Over the next four years he repealed the Population Registration Act, the Group Areas Act and the Land Acts, dismantled the nuclear weapons programme, and negotiated at CODESA. He won a whites-only referendum in 1992 with sixty-nine per cent backing reform. He shared the 1993 Nobel Peace Prize with Mandela and served as deputy president until 1996. He was criticised for the security forces' role in the township violence of the early 1990s, and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission found he had failed to disclose what he knew. He died in 2021.
- Lived: 1936 CE – 2021 CE
- Nationality: South African
- Roles: head_of_state
