Divided S. Africans OK April 27 Multiracial Vote : Democracy: Date approved over opposition of key groups. Dissension fuels doubts about smooth transition.

As President Frederik W. de Klerk and black leader Nelson Mandela met separately with President Clinton in Washington on Friday, their negotiators joined forces back home to ram through formal approval of a 1994 election date.

The maneuver by government and African National Congress negotiators, over the vociferous objections of key black and white opponents, set April 27 for South Africa’s first multiracial elections. It reflected their determination to show progress in constitutional talks before Clinton jointly awards Mandela and De Klerk the Liberty Medal in Philadelphia on Sunday for their contributions to democracy here.

But the dissension of Mangosuthu Gatsha Buthelezi’s Inkatha Freedom Party and right-wing white groups at the bargaining table underscored the difficulties that still threaten negotiations here.

And while the symbol of progress is sure to earn public relations points abroad, and perhaps even lead to the removal of bans on development loans to South Africa, the agreement fell far short of the unanimity that most analysts believe will be required for a smooth transition.

The hitches in negotiations also apparently persuaded the ANC this week to back down from a pledge, made last February, to call for the lifting of economic sanctions against South Africa after agreement on an election date and an executive council to oversee key government functions during the campaign.

Mandela said this week that sanctions should remain in place until more steps are taken, perhaps in the coming weeks, toward achieving a representative government in South Africa.

The 166 U.S. states, cities and counties that still have sanctions against South Africa are awaiting the ANC’s decision. The United States could also remove other, more biting sanctions, which prohibit World Bank and International Monetary Fund loans to South Africa.

In some ways, the visit by Mandela and De Klerk to Washington has been a disappointment. Both had hoped their trip would coincide with major progress at the negotiating table, and perhaps even be a platform for a formal ANC call to lift sanctions.

But in separate meetings with President Clinton and Secretary of State Warren Christopher on Friday, both men expressed optimism about South Africa’s future.

“We will make the necessary breakthroughs,” De Klerk said after meeting Christopher. “It’s just a matter of time.”

A White House statement said that Clinton “pledged that the United States will be a full partner in building democracy in South Africa,” and that the United States “will press for a commitment at the G-7 Summit in Tokyo next week to re-integrate South Africa into the world economy.”

In Johannesburg, the Inkatha Freedom Party walked out of a negotiating session Friday to protest the election date decision, which it contended was forced through by ANC and government negotiators anxious to please Washington.

“We maintain that you cannot call an election for you know not what,” said Walter Felgate, an Inkatha negotiator. Inkatha seeks guarantees of strong regional autonomy before the elections, which will establish an interim government that also will write the new constitution. The Zulu-based Inkatha party, a longtime ANC enemy, counts most of its support in Natal province.

“We do not know what kind of government we are going to have, what kind of system, what kind of constitution,” Felgate added. “It’s absurd to call for an election before we decide what the election is for.”

But the ANC, which is likely to win any future election, has pushed hard for an election date, which it believes is necessary to quiet growing discontent in the townships, where ANC supporters are losing patience with the long bargaining process.

The government, having agreed to relinquish its complete control of political power in South Africa, has joined the ANC in that effort, hoping for a rapid return of international respectability and investment. De Klerk’s National Party, which is likely to place second in any future poll, also is comforted by the ANC’s agreement to give minority parties a substantial say during the first five years of an interim government.

Both the ANC and the government suspect that Inkatha, and right-wing parties that seek an independent homeland for whites, are simply trying to stall the inevitability of an election.

“They do not seem to be in the kind of hurry that people on the ground are,” said Joe Slovo, a key ANC leader and negotiator for the ANC-aligned South African Communist Party.

Cyril Ramaphosa, the ANC’s secretary general and chief negotiator, said the agreement Friday gave the ANC “a deep sense of satisfaction.”

“What has been done is what millions of people have been hoping for--the date of the election has been set,” Ramaphosa said. “This news will reverberate across the country.”

In fact, though, the news went largely unheralded inside South Africa, where 19 months of on-and-off negotiations have left many confused and suspicious of claims of significant progress. And the right-wing attack on the negotiations council chamber last week has many South Africans worried that heavily armed rightists could still thwart the peace process.

Nineteen of the 26 negotiating parties agreed on the election date Friday, and one of the forum’s rotating chairmen ruled it adopted by “sufficient consensus.”