S. Africa Rivals Foresee Interim Regime Soon : Reform: But the government and ANC have opposite visions of how a new constitution should be written.

The African National Congress and the South African government, in separate pronouncements Tuesday, agreed that an interim government for the country is only months away--but traded sharp words indicating that they still cling to diametrically opposed visions of how a new constitution should be written.

After more than three months of closed-door negotiations, the government and the ANC, the two principal players in South Africa’s future, have moved closer to agreement on many of the details of the transition to a multiracial democracy and voting rights for the black majority in South Africa.

But their progress has been measured in inches rather than yards. Vast differences remain, from what the constitution-writing transitional government should look like, to how the future economy should be structured, to the wisdom of having built-in constitutional protections for whites.

The government, its hand strengthened by the recent 2-to-1 referendum victory from white voters, Monday reiterated its proposal that an elected two-chamber Parliament draft the new constitution. President Frederik W. de Klerk first made that proposal several months ago, ending previous government insistence that the current forum for negotiations, and not an elected body, draw up the new constitution.

But De Klerk’s current proposal, like his previous one, would give whites and other minority groups an effective veto over the new constitution.

The ANC rejected those proposals Tuesday, even though it would give the country’s 29 million blacks, who outnumber whites nearly 6 to 1, a vote for the first time in 300 years. It said a bicameral Parliament would be a reminder “that the cadaver of apartheid still rules” and would create chaos with the two chambers of Parliament “at each other’s throats.”

The ANC repeated its position that a single body, elected by the population as a whole, is the only democratic way to write a new constitution.

Both sides expressed willingness to compromise, however. The ANC, seeking to reassure whites worried about domination by the black majority, said that decisions of its proposed constitution-writing body would require a two-thirds majority.

And Gerrit Viljoen, the government’s constitutional expert, said the government is “not married” to its transitional government proposals. But he added that it would not surrender power without ironclad guarantees that the rights of the white minority are protected.

The ANC and the government are just two of the 21 political groups negotiating the future in the Convention for a Democratic South Africa (CODESA). The next open meeting of CODESA is scheduled for mid-May, and an agreement on the first stage, an appointed interim government, is expected then. But CODESA remains divided over the next stage, an elected transitional government, which would be charged with drawing up a new constitution.

Without the agreement of both the ANC and the government, any proposal for the future is doomed. But both groups are under substantial pressure, from inside as well as outside the country, to come to an agreement.

Both now agree that the interim government will be appointed by negotiators, perhaps as early as July. But neither has abandoned its key demands for the important step that will follow, when the formal constitution will be written.

The government proposal for a bicameral Parliament would have one house chosen by a one-person, one-vote election of all South Africans, and a second chamber giving whites and other minorities greater power than their numbers. Both chambers would have to approve any new constitution.

ANC leaders contend that the constitution should be written by one body, democratically elected by all South Africans on the basis of one-person, one-vote. The rights of whites, they argue, would be amply protected under a bill of rights, enforced by an independent judiciary.

The Inkatha Freedom Party, led by Zulu Chief Mangosuthu Gatsha Buthelezi, opposes any nationwide election until violence in the country is brought under control.