S. Africa Accord Endorsed by ANC : Government: The consensus with white leaders clears the way for constitutional talks.

Reaching an important consensus with this nation’s white rulers, the African National Congress on Thursday formally endorsed the idea of a national unity government that would give minority parties a say in running the country for up to five years after the first democratic elections.

The decision by the ANC’s national executive committee came after three days of intense, closed-door debate in Soweto over the tentative agreements that ANC and government negotiators had reached last week.

Political analysts said this appears to have finally cleared the way for the resumption of multi-party constitutional talks, which broke down last May over fundamental disagreements between Nelson Mandela’s ANC and President Frederik W. de Klerk’s government. A session to plan the resumption of those talks has been scheduled for late next week.

ANC leaders said a national unity government would give all parties with proven support “joint responsibility” for the future of the country, thus “minimizing the potential threat to democracy from divisive forces in the period immediately following adoption of a new constitution.”

“The purpose will be to unite our country, to bring about stability and to make sure we embark on a reconstruction program,” said Cyril Ramaphosa, secretary general of the ANC. As he spoke to reporters in Soweto, Ramaphosa was flanked by several dozen members of the ANC’s 86-member national executive committee.

The ANC had to overcome some vocal opposition within its own ranks, primarily from regional ANC leaders who see a national unity government--even one with a limited life--as too great a concession to the white-minority government.

But dissenters were won over by assurances that minority parties would not have sufficient power to paralyze the government or block attempts to restructure the country and redress the imbalances created by 42 years of apartheid rule.

The growing consensus between the ANC and the government on constitutional formulas has been sharply criticized by left-wing blacks, right-wing whites, some black homeland leaders and Zulu Chief Mangosuthu Gatsha Buthelezi’s Inkatha Freedom Party.

Radical blacks accuse the ANC of selling out the black liberation struggle.

Inkatha, the homeland leaders and white rightists object to the ANC-government blueprint on the grounds that decisions are being made without consulting them. Buthelezi, in particular, has warned that a government dominated by his rivals in the ANC will trigger violent opposition from his Zulu followers.

But both Mandela and De Klerk have stressed that all final agreements will have to be the product of negotiations involving all significant black and white parties.

They have characterized the ANC-government agreements as an attempt to avert potential roadblocks between the two, who will be the most important players in multi-party talks. And they are trying to lure Buthelezi, as well as right-wing whites, into that forum.

“The composition and mandate of a government of national unity is not a deal struck between political parties in smoke-filled rooms,” the ANC’s executive committee said in a statement Thursday. Those decisions, the ANC added, will be made by the South African electorate in the first democratic elections, perhaps as early as March or April next year.

Many details of the national unity government remain to be negotiated.

But the scenario, as sketched out in ANC-government talks, would begin with multiracial elections for a constituent assembly. Those elections would be run, by party, on a regional as well as a national basis, with equal numbers of regional and national representatives sitting in the assembly.

The constituent assembly would then write a new constitution for the country, with each section adopted by a two-thirds vote.

Recent public opinion polls suggest that the ANC would gain more than half but less than two-thirds of the assembly seats. The polls indicate that De Klerk’s ruling National Party and its allies could gain close to a third of the seats.

The assembly would elect a president, by a simple majority, and the assembly and president would govern for a fixed period of up to five years, until the first elections under the new constitution.

Under the proposals for a national unity government, the president, likely to be Mandela, would form his cabinet with representatives of all parties getting more than 5% of the national vote.

The powers of those minority cabinet members still must be negotiated. But, as envisioned by the ANC, the president’s decision would require the support of two-thirds of his cabinet.

The ANC-government deal is a recognition of the fractious political scene in South Africa. It has been warmly greeted by moderate political forces who worry that important minority parties, such as Inkatha and the right-wing Conservative Party, might try to make the country ungovernable if they are cut out of decision-making.