ANC Sees Black-White Power Sharing in Future

ANC leaders now say black-white power sharing is likely in a post-apartheid South Africa, a sign that moderates in the nation’s leading black group have gained the upper hand over hard-liners.

The move could help ease the country’s political crisis.

In recent clashes over what compromises the African National Congress should make in negotiating a new constitution with the white government, ANC moderates have said white interests must be recognized if the country is to solve its racial conflict.

Hard-liners have said there should be no special privileges for the white minority.

But in an apparent victory for the moderates, the ANC’s National Working Committee, its main policy-making committee, called Wednesday night for an interim government with a “central role” for the ANC and President Frederik W. de Klerk’s ruling National Party during the transition to multiracial democracy.

After the transition, it said, “We also need to accept the fact that . . . the balance of forces, and the interests of the country as a whole, may still require us to consider the establishment of a government of national unity.”

The document will be sent to the ANC’s governing National Executive Committee and is likely to be accepted as ANC policy.

The ANC’s rank-and-file supporters, who tend to be more militant than the leadership, may oppose the plan as too conciliatory.

The ANC would probably win an election if the 30 million blacks are allowed to vote, and many ANC supporters argue that the group should not have to share power with minority parties.

However, most political observers say that a power-sharing agreement is the only realistic way to solve the country’s political crisis and end violence that has claimed thousands of lives in recent years.