F.W. de Klerk: "Time for a younger man"

De Klerk Quits Politics

National Party leaders have been meeting in Cape Town to consider the next step. One member of the party's executive said: "I think the National Party is ready for a black leader."

Mr de Klerk said his resignation would take effect when a successor was chosen on September 9, and he would then devote himself to writing his memoirs and "setting the record straight" on South Africa's recent history.

The campaigning is over

The 61-year old de Klerk was born into a conservative Afrikaner family. For many years a committed supporter of apartheid, Mr de Klerk eventually realised that South Africa's racist system of government could not continue indefinitely.

In 1989, he ousted the hardline Prime Minister P.W. Botha. Over the next five years, he began dismantling the network of laws which sustained apartheid and repressed black opposition.

In February 1990, he legalised the African National Congress, the South African Communist Party and other exiled opposition groups. In the same month, he released ANC leader Nelson Mandela - a move which signalled that the days of apartheid were numbered.

Both President Mandela and Mr de Klerk were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in recognition of their efforts to peacefully introduce democracy to South Africa.

Mandela and de Klerk receive the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993

On hearing of Mr de Klerk's resignation, President Mandela said that he deserved an honourable place in history.

"I only hope South Africans will not forget the role de Klerk played in effecting a smooth transition from our painful past to the dispensation South Africa enjoys today," President Mandela said.

Some National Party activists are puzzled by Mr de Klerk's decision, as the party had begun to regain ground it lost after quitting President Mandela's transitional government last year. The National Party is trying to reconstruct itself as a viable non-racial opposition to the ruling ANC.