Next Step : Casting Ballots on South Africa’s Fate : About 3.2 million whites will decide if President De Klerk keeps his job and if detente with the black majority goes forward.

The white folks, gathered at a soup kitchen on the ragged edge of downtown, made a tough audience for a president trying to give the blacks the vote. Most were dirt poor, scraping by on meager government pensions.

But, because they are white, they are among the 3.2 million South Africans who will decide next week whether President Frederik W. de Klerk keeps his job--and whether the government continues to negotiate with the 27-million-strong black majority.

So it was that De Klerk appeared at the soup kitchen a few days ago. The president and his entourage of Cabinet ministers in pin-striped suits were fresh from a luncheon of smoked salmon with their most ardent supporters, the white business establishment.

But here the treats here were koeksusters, sweet Afrikaner pastries, and the listeners, dressed in threadbare suits and dresses, were people for whom a black-controlled government can only mean greater misery.

The president left his stump speech in his pocket. It was time to get back to basics.

“We have to live together with the other people of South Africa,” he began, speaking Afrikaans. Everyone knew those “other people” were the voteless blacks.

“They are as South African as we are. They have been living here for more than three centuries,” he said. “We have to live together with them because it’s in the Bible. We have to bring them justice. It’s what the Bible says.”

“You must vote ‘ ja ‘ on March 17,” he added.

Meanwhile, at a town hall in the conservative farming district about 500 miles away, Andries Treurnicht was preaching a different version of the Bible.

The leader of South Africa’s far-right white movement and a former Dutch Reformed pastor, he argued that God never intended for white people to be ruled by blacks. And he said that forcing South Africa to become one multiracial country, ruled by a black majority, is folly.

The way to vote next Tuesday was “ nee ,” Treurnicht said, nodding to the standing ovation.

Ja or nee . Yes or No. The most important campaign in South African history is under way with a vengeance that rivals any American presidential campaign. At stake is nothing less than the future of the country.

If whites vote “yes,” the reform process begun by De Klerk will continue and, perhaps, quicken. If they vote “no,” De Klerk will resign and call new white elections, probably ushering in a right-wing government, ending power-sharing talks with the black majority, sparking a wave of black fury and touching off renewed international sanctions.

The latest public opinion polls give De Klerk the advantage, but more than 40% of whites of voting age say they have not yet made up their minds.

On De Klerk’s side is the business community, which is spending nearly $1 million to encourage a “yes” vote; the liberal Democratic Party; most of the media establishment, and virtually every leader in the world.

But the right-wing forces, which have grown in strength in recent months, are predicting victory. Their supporters include many policemen, soldiers and civil servants--as well as De Klerk’s predecessor, Pieter W. Botha, who made a dramatic announcement last weekend that he would vote “no.” De Klerk’s opponents contend that the president is leading whites into an unholy alliance with Nelson Mandela’s African National Congress and the ANC’s Communist Party allies. The result, they say, will be a wholesale sellout of the interests of whites, especially de Klerk’s fellow Afrikaners.

The fierce battle for the soul of white South Africa has created a mood of uncertainty across the country. Home buyers have put purchases on hold, new investment has ground to a halt and Parliament has adjourned in Cape Town until after the referendum.

The two opponents--De Klerk and Treurnicht--have launched grueling whistle-stop campaigns across a nation twice the size of California. They are kissing babies and pressing the flesh at retirement homes, firehouses, police stations, factories, colleges and everywhere else that whites live and work.

The country is splattered with posters. “Vote Yes for Peace,” say those tacked up by the Democratic Party. The ruling National Party uses the president’s initials in its slogan: “Yes for FW.”

Treurnicht’s Conservative Party has countered with a poster shaped like a stop sign that calls on whites to “Stop De Klerk and Mandela” and “Stop Nat Sellout to the ANC.”

The ANC has criticized De Klerk’s decision to call the referendum, saying the time for whites-only elections has passed. But Mandela, the ANC president, writing in South Africa’s largest-circulation newspaper on Sunday, urged whites in the ANC to vote “yes” to “show they repudiate, once and for all, the cruel policies that have brought so much shame to our country and caused so much pain . . .”

For De Klerk, the three-week campaign has been an opportunity to spell out, for the first time since his 1989 election, the reasons he is moving so quickly to dismantle apartheid and negotiate with the black majority. He has delivered dozens of speeches since the campaign began, trying to reassure whites that his government will never agree to a constitution that will cost whites their jobs, their lifestyle, their culture or their property.

The president and his supporters are pulling out all the stops. In recent days, De Klerk has revealed plans to pour money into the national police force to combat a sharp increase in crime, an increasing concern of whites.

De Klerk’s supporters never tire of reminding voters that a “no” vote will yank the new worldwide welcome mat out from under the nation’s beloved sports teams, which are preparing a triumphant return to the Olympics this summer.

One radio advertisement has professional golfer Gary Player “calling from America.” His message: “Think of your families and your future. Change is the key to survival.”

And De Klerk’s campaign got an unexpected boost from South Africa’s cricket team, which defeated Australia in the opening match of the World Cup. Until the ANC agreed to allow the cricketers to go, the team had been banned from the world competition for 18 years.

As white South Africans were celebrating their victory, a full-page advertisement in local newspapers reminded them that the situation could easily revert. The ad shows a vacant cricket pitch with the words: “Without reform, South Africa hasn’t got a sporting chance.”

Treurnicht’s party, joined by the most militant right-wing forces, also is waging an emotional campaign, raising the specter of swart-gevaar, or black danger, once used so successfully by past National Party governments. Right-wing leaders are tapping into white fears that an ANC-led government will crush their privileged lives and rob them of their property, language and culture.

Last week, Treurnicht told a cheering audience in Thabazimbi, a right-wing stronghold in the northern Transvaal, that the ANC would rule as a dictatorship and nationalize white property.

“What will become of our pensions, our savings and our property?” he asked.

De Klerk counters that he “will not agree to a suicide plan” in his negotiations with the black majority. He says communism has been so discredited worldwide that it is no longer a threat in South Africa. And he contends that a right-wing government would mean a return to old-style apartheid, an increase in white conscription, new international sanctions, “chaos and darkness.”

De Klerk also warned that a “no” vote would send a message “to the other 27 million (black) South Africans that you will not get proper rights in the land of your birth.” If that happens, De Klerk said, “you won’t have to wait for the referendum results to find out how they will react. A ‘no’ majority or a weak ‘yes’ majority guarantees chaos.”

Emotions have been running high on the campaign trail. At Rand Afrikaans University in Johannesburg, a young white student came within a few feet of De Klerk and shouted: “God’s curse on you and your government!” Many students booed the heckler as he disappeared into the crowd.

“I’m sorry for him,” De Klerk said a few minutes later. “He seems quite misguided.”

Two days before, Treurnicht had stalked out of his own church service because he thought the pastor was attempting to equate a “yes” vote on the referendum with a vote for God.

Treurnicht’s party believes whites should have the right to rule themselves in a separate homeland. But he has been vague about what he would do if his party should take power. Some right-wing leaders say they would reinstitute apartheid laws, while others say they would instead sit down with black leaders to negotiate the boundaries of separate ethnic states.

“South Africa is a country with a lot of nations,” said Philip Potgieter, the right-wing mayor of Thabazimbi. “You’ll never mix them into one pot because, when you do, the majority will undermine the minority. They’ll kill each other from sunrise to sunset.”

But, at the Johannesburg soup kitchen, De Klerk’s message hit home with 62-year-old Margaret Souter, who lives with her husband on a $95-a-month disability pension.

“I think there will be a blood bath if there’s a ‘no’ vote,” she said. “This country has got to change.”

What’s at Stake

Although whites are in the minority, they control most of the money and land in South Africa as a result of the apartheid system. Next week, they will vote on whether to continue dismantling apartheid.

ECONOMICALLY ACTIVE POPULATION

In 1989 Coloreds and Asians: 1,557,000 (14%) Whites: 2,033,000 (19%) Blacks: 7,256,000 (67%)

DISTRIBUTION OF TOTAL INCOME

In 1988 Coloreds and Asians: 10% Whites: 54% Blacks: 36%

DISTRIBUTION OF LAND

Set by law until 1991 Blacks, Coloreds and Asians: 14% Whites: 86%