De Klerk Rejects ANC Plan for Interim Government

President Frederik W. de Klerk, making clear that his white government intends to remain firmly in control of any future talks on power sharing, has ruled out the possibility of a transitional government of blacks and whites governing South Africa while a non-racial constitution is being drawn.

De Klerk for the first time rejected a core negotiating position presented by the outlawed African National Congress, the main black nationalist group fighting the government and a future key bargaining partner. The ANC has proposed that a multiracial interim government would share power during a constitution-drafting process for a new political order.

“We are not prepared to move into a situation where a lawfully elected government will be suspended and interim governments will come about,” De Klerk said. He said, however, that once a new constitution is negotiated with blacks under the supervision of the current white government, the existing authority in Pretoria will have to accept it and give way to a new government.

In an interview with the Washington Post, De Klerk stressed that six, or even nine, months was not enough time to find a political solution to South Africa’s racial conflict, although he said he hopes to have made substantial progress within that period.

De Klerk made clear that whatever new political order evolves from negotiations, power in South Africa would be shared on the basis of racially defined groups and not according to majority rule.

De Klerk also ruled out the possibility of his government repealing the apartheid law that categorizes every South African in a racial group at birth, saying that the race law is “fundamentally tied” to the existing constitution and that its repeal would have to go hand in hand with the writing of a new constitution.

De Klerk said that if the government repealed the 1950 Population Registration Act, which black nationalists regard as the cornerstone of the apartheid system of racial separation, “we would not be able to hold an election because voters’ rolls are at the moment compiled from that.” He did not say how voting based on racially defined groups would be held in the future if the registration act were scrapped under a new constitution.

De Klerk’s rejection of the ANC’s plan seemed to present a major stumbling block to the opening of talks to end racial conflict.