De Klerk Wins 5-Year Presidency, Vows Black Decision-Making Role

Frederik W. de Klerk was elected today to a five-year term as president and pledged to ensure that the voteless black majority “becomes part of the decision-making process.”

The Electoral College, dominated by Parliament members of the governing National Party, cast a unanimous vote for De Klerk a day after the largest legal protest march in South Africa’s history took place with his approval.

The brief meeting of the electors took place in a parliamentary chamber near St. George’s Cathedral, starting point for Wednesday’s march by more than 20,000 people.

Accepting the outcome of the vote, De Klerk described the next five years as a decisive period and promised to be a leader for all South Africans, not just the white voters who kept the National Party in control of Parliament in elections last week.

“We are committed to lead South Africa through peaceful means to a new dispensation,” he said. “It will be a tremendous privilege to lead this country to this goal.”

‘New South Africa’

De Klerk, 53, has served as acting president since Aug. 15, a day after he and other Cabinet ministers pressured Pieter W. Botha into resigning after 11 years in power. De Klerk is to be inaugurated Wednesday in Pretoria. He is expected to expand on the brief remarks he made today in a major inauguration speech.

In the last four weeks, De Klerk has pledged repeatedly to seek a “new South Africa” in which racial tensions will be defused and the disenfranchised black majority will receive some form of political rights.

Black leaders have received his proposals with skepticism, but De Klerk depicted his approval of the protest march in Cape Town as proof of his sincerity. A wide range of commentators today commended his decision.

The Sowetan, the country’s largest black-oriented daily newspaper, said De Klerk “scored a public relations coup.” It said the lives of hundreds of black protesters could have been saved if previous white rulers “had thought as De Klerk thought.”

‘Meaningful Step’

Beeld, a pro-government newspaper, said De Klerk “took a big-hearted and meaningful step” by allowing the march. It said the government “has shown radical groups in South Africa--and the whole world--that its door really is open to discussions over reform.”

De Klerk was harshly criticized by the far-right Conservative Party, which sought an urgent debate in Parliament to discuss the security situation. A Conservative spokesman, Moolman Mentz, said approval of the march was “a knife thrust in the back” of the security forces.

Police stayed out of sight as marchers followed Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Cape Town Mayor Gordon Oliver from St. George’s Cathedral to City Hall. Two weeks earlier, police broke up protest marches in Cape Town with whips, batons and a water cannon.