PERSPECTIVE ON SOUTH AFRICA : De Klerk Is Nearing High Noon : The alternatives are stark--plunge back into apartheid or go forward toward hope and democracy.

Two years ago, South Africa’s new President, Frederik W. de Klerk, announced a turnaround in policy. Leader of the very party that invented apartheid and strove for 40 years to apply it, he announced at the opening of the first Parliament after his inauguration that apartheid was dead, that the African National Congress, the Pan-Africanist Congress and the South African Communist Party--organizations banned for 30 years--would be legalized, and that Nelson Mandela, the world’s most famous political prisoner, would be freed. He said that, in due course, a process of negotiation between parties would be launched that would lead to a new constitution based on equal rights and common citizenship.

De Klerk was as good as his word. The liberal opposition Democratic Party, finding the news almost too good to believe, asked question after question to determine whether this really meant democracy. It did. The party of the right-wing whites, the Conservative Party, howled that the president had no mandate for what he was doing and began to organize resistance.

The world sat up and took notice of De Klerk’s actions, although it was at first cautious, skeptical and unwilling to believe that the recalcitrant white supremacists of South Africa were truly going to abandon their dominant position after so many years. The business community throughout South Africa was thrilled. Business had long staggered under blows rained upon it both by rebellious black workers--rebelling against apartheid rather than against the employers directly--and by the outside world, applying sanctions and other measures aimed at the government, not business. Having been the scapegoat for so long, business rejoiced at the promise of release from that status.

De Klerk gave evidence of his sincerity in various ways. By-election results began to indicate, as was to be expected, that white voters were swinging from the Democratic Party to De Klerk’s National Party, but also on an increasing scale from the National Party to the Conservatives. Supported by the Democrats, the president pressed on.

In 1991, De Klerk announced at the opening of Parliament in early February that he would move for the repeal of the major apartheid laws during that session. Once again, he delivered. Most of those laws were gone by the time Parliament recessed in June.

Meanwhile, there was continual squabbling between the dominant black party, the ANC, and the government, and rumors began to circulate that De Klerk would form an alliance with the Inkatha Freedom Party, a largely Zulu organization led by Chief Mangosuthu Buthelezi, against the ANC. In mid-1991, the “Inkathagate” scandal broke. The government admitted funding Inkatha clandestinely in its political battle against the ANC. Ironically, this was what brought the ANC swiftly to the negotiating table.

The multiparty conference that De Klerk had envisaged in early 1990 met at last in November, 1991. The Conservatives and their allies and the PAC and its friends were all invited but declined or walked out. But 19 parties of the moderate center, including the ANC and the National Party, and apparently representing the large majority of the people, attended. It called itself the Convention for a Democratic South Africa, or Codesa; it adopted a Declaration of Intent, a ringing endorsement of Western-type liberal democracy, and it settled down to bargain about the new constitution.

But, while all this was going so well for De Klerk, the Conservative Party was creeping up behind him. In three successive by-elections among Afrikaans-speaking whites--his own original constituency--they beat his party badly. They thumped away at the theme that he had no mandate; they now began to claim that he no longer represented the majority of white people, certainly not Afrikaners.

Last month, De Klerk struck back. He announced that he would immediately call a referendum of white voters to renew his mandate. If he lost, he said, he and his government would resign, which would precipitate a (white) general election that the Conservative Party would be almost sure to win. If he won, it would be the green light for rapid, complete reform.

This is high noon with a vengeance. If De Klerk were to lose the referendum, scheduled for March 17, the country would be plunged back into apartheid. There would be internal conflict on a massive scale, international repudiation and full-blown sanctions--disaster for the business community and everyone else. If he wins, the Conservative Party will almost certainly be broken and the road will be open for democracy, hopefully for new local and foreign investment and for economic recovery and prosperity.

The experts and the polls say that De Klerk will win. The ANC and Inkatha both offer moral support. Business is pouring in funds and backing of every possible kind. But the decision lies with the white voters--anxious, confused, mostly well-meaning but understandably scared. In truth, March 17 is high noon. Nothing so important has ever happened in the history of South Africa.