Johannesburg – The last president under apartheid law in South Africa, FW de Klerk has died at the age of 85 in his home in Cape Town.
Here are 5 things to know about him
Frederik Willem de Klerk, born March 18, 1936, Johannesburg, South Africa, was a politician who as president of South Africa in 1989–94 brought the apartheid system of racial segregation to an end and negotiated a transition to majority rule in his country.
- He and late former president Nelson Mandela jointly received the 1993 Nobel Prize for Peace for their collaboration in efforts to establish nonracial democracy in South Africa.
2. In 1972, he was elected to Parliament for the National Party. His legal talents and the respect in which he was held won him a number of key ministerial portfolios, including mines and energy affairs in 1979–82, internal affairs 1982–85, and national education and planning (1984–89). He was elected leader of the House of Assembly in 1986.
3. De Klerk committed himself to speed up the reform process to initiating talks about a new post-apartheid constitution with representatives of what was then the country’s four designated racial groups: White, Black, Coloured, and Asian [Indian].
4. He moved to release all-important political prisoners, including Nelson Mandela, and to lift the ban on the African National Congress (ANC) and the Pan-Africanist Congress of Azania.
He resigned as deputy president in 1996 and then as head of the National Party in 1997 when he announced his retirement from politics.
5. He established the F.W. de Klerk Foundation in 2000 and the Global Leadership Foundation in 2004.
Also read: Apartheid’s last president, FW de Dlerk has died
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