Mandela’s Heartening Outreach

South Africa’s first black president, Nelson Mandela, will be inaugurated today. Vice President Al Gore and First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton will be among the dignitaries and heads of state who will bring good wishes and plenty of foreign assistance to Pretoria. At least 1 billion viewers will witness this historic moment on television.

It has been an astonishing two weeks for the 75-year-old Mandela and his African National Congress. He has presided over a nonviolent transfer of power, a rare outcome for most political revolutions. He has become president of a country that imprisoned him for decades.

President Mandela is fashioning an admirably inclusive government.

On Monday, on the floor of a Parliament that had always been off-limits to blacks, Mandela hugged his most potent black adversary, Zulu Chief Mangosuthu Gatsha Buthelezi. The rivalry between Buthelezi’s Inkatha and ANC supporters has killed more than 15,000 South Africans in the four years since Mandela was freed. That embrace, coupled with Inkatha’s showing in the election that allows Buthelezi to appoint three ministers to the multiparty Cabinet, should help reduce hostilities.

The ANC will hold the most power because Mandela won the right to appoint 18 to the Cabinet. He chose Thabo Mbeki, a veteran ANC leader, as his first deputy president. Longtime supporter Joe Slovo, the white leader of the Communist Party, holds the health and welfare portfolio.

By virtue of the National Party’s strong second-place showing, former President Frederik W. De Klerk will become a deputy president. De Klerk also chose several prominent holdovers from his tenure to the Cabinet. One is Derek Keys, a successful businessman, who will keep his job as minister of finance. Another key appointment is Roelf Meyer, the white minority government’s chief negotiator during the talks that led to the transition to democracy, as minister of constitutional development. Their place in the new Cabinet should reassure wary potential investors.

President Mandela’s new coalition government will expire in five years--long enough for the racially and politically integrated Cabinet to set the tone for power-sharing in the new South Africa. It is off to an auspicious start.