National Agenda : White Parliament Ready for Last Hurrah : South Africa has issued a ‘death sentence’ for 140-year-old institution. Soon, multiracial lawmaking will be a reality.

Behind the Corinthian columns of Parliament, in the great debating hall, the paneling is South African stinkwood, the leather is English, the carpet is Irish and the honorable lawmakers come in nearly every size, shape and color--except black African.

So it has been for 140 years in South Africa.

In all that time, no black man or black woman has cast a vote in Parliament or given a speech on the floor. No black South African--or black foreigner--could even eat in the dining rooms until Parliament converted a cafeteria a few years back and constructed a short-cut footbridge to keep those dark-skinned guests from passing through the lobby.

Now, though, all that is about to change. In a big way.

The fifth session of the ninth Parliament, the supreme power of South Africa, opened last month for its traditional five-month sitting. The elected members have arrived daily in their German luxury cars to debate the budget, question the government, solemnly consider the abstruse legislative package of President Frederik W. de Klerk and, of course, collect their salaries.

But they know their days are numbered. In fact, this is likely to be the last full session for a white-dominated Parliament in South Africa. The members’ most important remaining tasks will be to give legal force to the transition to democracy and to clear out their desks.

“We’re mostly filling time, waiting for the day when we do ourselves out of business,” said Tony Leon, a member of the liberal Democratic Party. “I wouldn’t say we’re exactly overburdened at the moment.

“We have a death sentence,” he added. “But we don’t know the day of the execution.”

Three long years after De Klerk began to dismantle apartheid, South Africa finally is preparing to begin the process that will propel this country of 39 million people over the final stretch of uncharted road toward the first democratic elections in its 300-year history.

Black and white leaders plan to meet March 5 to give new life to the process of constitutional negotiations, which collapsed in disarray and acrimony nine months ago. They will set a date, probably within weeks, to resume multi-party constitutional talks.

If all goes according to plan, Parliament will formally shed the South African constitution by October, rubber-stamp the decisions of multi-party negotiators and set an election date for March or April of 1994.

Voters will elect a constituent assembly, which will make a final decision on the functions, powers and even the name of South Africa’s most important governing body. Whatever it is called, the new Parliament will undoubtedly include blacks for the first time.

Decisions on the future of South Africa no longer are being made by Parliament. And although many members of Parliament also are participating in negotiations, the body itself has become so unimportant that the African National Congress didn’t even bother with its annual protest march on Parliament this year.

Yet, the supreme objective of all these black and white political warriors is control of this two-block-long collection of buildings in the center of Cape Town.

The buildings of Parliament, some of which date to the 19th Century, are among the most beautiful architectural accouterments of this attractive city. And the halls and chambers reek with the white history of this land.

It was in Cape Town, in 1652, that a man named Jan van Riebeeck established an outpost of the Dutch East India Co. and a company-run government. To get here, he passed Robben Island, later to become the infamous penal colony where the white rulers kept anti-apartheid activist Nelson Mandela for most of his 27 years in prison.

The southern tip of Africa soon passed from Dutch to British rule. Then, in 1909, the British granted South Africa a parliamentary government with a whites-only franchise, and, in 1961, the country left the Commonwealth and became a fully independent republic.

King George VI opened Parliament in 1947, and giant portraits of British royalty now clutter a dark museum on the grounds. The king’s daughter, Elizabeth, celebrated her 21st birthday here a few steps from Parliament in the ballroom of Tuynhuys, which is now President De Klerk’s Cape Town office.

South Africa’s Parliament has borrowed heavily from the mother of all parliaments. As in Britain, each session opens with a procession down a narrow carpet, the width of two swords, and the sergeant-at-arms places a 4 1/2-foot mace in front of the House Speaker. But in South Africa, like nowhere else in the world, that 17-pound mace is made of solid gold.

South Africa’s government is divided among three provincial capitals. The executive branch is headquartered in Pretoria, north of Johannesburg. The highest court in the land is in Bloemfontein, in the center of the country. And Parliament sits in Cape Town.

Before each session of Parliament, planeloads and trainloads of officials and files travel from Pretoria to Cape Town. When the session is over, everyone moves back to Pretoria.

Over the years, parliamentary sessions have been exceedingly rambunctious, often resembling verbal prizefights. Many of the debates centered on apartheid, the policy foisted on the country by the National Party in 1948. Colin Eglin, along with veteran member Helen Suzman, fought many frustrating battles against apartheid in these chambers.

“I’ve always enjoyed the cut and thrust of this place,” said Eglin, a liberal member of Parliament who first won a seat here in 1958. “It creates a certain tension when you have your opponents within spitting distance.”

But only one truly violent act is known to have been committed inside the halls of Parliament. On Sept. 6, 1966, a white messenger stabbed Prime Minister Hendrik Verwoerd to death on the floor of the House of Assembly. No motive was ever offered, and the murderer remains in jail to this day.

Parliament was lily-white until 1984, when separate, less powerful chambers were established for Indians and mixed-race Coloreds. Altogether, those three groups account for less than a third of the country’s population, which is predominantly black African.

Remnants of that racially exclusive past linger. Some restrooms still carry the old Dutch-language signs. A large oil painting of former President Pieter W. Botha’s all-white Cabinet still adorns the vestibule. Elderly men in dark gray suits still escort visitors to their appointments.

And young parliamentary reporters still scurry back and forth from the chambers, logging every word uttered in debate. Volumes containing 82 years of those debates, scrupulously recorded in Afrikaans and English, stand testament to their endeavors.

But since the arrival of Indian and Colored members in 1984, and especially since De Klerk launched his reforms in 1990, some changes have occurred.

An 80-page pamphlet now helps guide official reporters through the growing cultural diversity of the body. Listed in the pamphlet are such Hindu words as brahmacharya , which means chastity, and asuras , which means evil beings. One entry reads: “Biko, Steve, died in detention, SA.”

A halal menu has been added in the dining room (halal being for Muslims much what kosher is for Jews), and members say the curry comes in three degrees: strong, very strong and suicidal.

A portrait of Van Riebeeck still hangs high on one 50-foot-high wall in the library. But, these days, the white “founder” of South Africa looks down on a magazine rack that includes the latest issue of Mayibuye, the once-outlawed organ of the African National Congress.

Nico Smit, head of public relations for Parliament, organizes the steady stream of visiting school groups. In one of the ironies of South Africa, black school groups greatly outnumber white ones.

The changes, and the prospect of even more tumultuous ones ahead, have created a growing sense of anxiety in the halls, though. More than a few current members of Parliament hold faint hopes that they will be able to return to these chambers one day.

As a way of hedging their bets, some Colored and Indian members, once vilified as sellouts by the ANC, have crossed the aisle to join De Klerk’s ruling National Party. Five Democratic Party members and one Nationalist have joined the ANC, and one member of De Klerk’s party has joined Zulu Chief Mangosuthu Gatsha Buthelezi’s Inkatha Freedom Party.

The hundreds of employees of Parliament, however, are more than a little anxious about the prospect of all those new bosses.

“What will happen with this new constitution?” asked Charles Cilliers, who came to work as a translator 25 years ago and now heads the office that records the work of Parliament.

He answers his own question: “We don’t have any idea whatsoever.”

The Pace of Reform: De Klerk’s Plan

This is the South African government’s timetable. The African National Congress says it wants elections before the end of this year. 1993:

* FEBRUARY/EARLY MARCH

Completion of bilateral discussions between political parties, such as ANC and government, government and Inkatha Freedom Party.

* MARCH

Multi-party constitutional negotiations, suspended in May, 1992, resume.

* MAY

Negotiators agree on constitution-making procedures, Election Commission and powers and functions of a Transitional Executive Council, which will give blacks a say in running government departments.

* JUNE

Parliament adopts legislation for Transitional Executive Council and Election Commission. Both bodies begin functioning.

* OCTOBER

Election rules and regulations are formulated. 1994

* MARCH or APRIL

South Africa holds its first multi-racial, fully democratic elections.