S. Africa Ends All-White Rule : Democracy: Parliament votes itself out of existence by adopting new constitution. De Klerk calls action giving equal rights to blacks ‘not a funeral, but a birth.’

This nation’s last white-controlled Parliament on Wednesday overwhelmingly adopted a sweeping new constitution that guarantees equal rights to blacks for the first time and officially ends the pernicious policies of apartheid.

The approval, in the same ornate chamber where apartheid was institutionalized, was the penultimate step in the difficult march to democracy that began almost four years ago and will culminate in one-person, one-vote elections next April 27.

The vote formalizes the negotiated revolution aimed at transferring power peacefully from the white minority to the black majority.

The vote was 237 to 45 in an emotion-charged joint session of Parliament’s three racially segregated houses--the House of Assembly for whites, who held most of the power, House of Representatives for mixed-race Colored and the House of Delegates for Indians. Black Africans, who make up three-fourths of the population, have never had elected representation here.

Pro-apartheid members of the right-wing Conservative Party angrily shouted “Traitor!” at those in the horseshoe-shaped hall who pressed the tiny blue button on their polished desks to vote for ratification. Others cheered, however, and a few raised their fists in triumph and shouted: “Viva!”

In a speech ending the landmark session, President Frederik W. de Klerk said the vote put “South Africa over the threshold of history into a new era with all its dangers, opportunities and challenges.”

De Klerk, who shared this year’s Nobel Peace Prize with African National Congress President Nelson Mandela for guiding the move to democracy, said these final hours of the white-ruled Parliament were “not a funeral, but a birth.”

The next democratically elected Parliament, which is almost certain to be dominated by the ANC and led by Mandela, will function “without the albatross of injustice, exclusion and discrimination hanging about its neck,” De Klerk said.

Mandela, who was on his way to the Bahamas for a vacation, heralded the accord in a statement released by ANC headquarters in Johannesburg.

“Now, for the first time, the future holds the promise of (a) brighter tomorrow,” he said.

The last session was particularly stirring for the setting.

Whites have run this rugged country ever since the first Dutch settlers sailed around the Cape of Good Hope and landed here, under the brooding buttresses of Table Mountain, nearly 350 years ago. They enshrined their dictatorial authority in an all-white Parliament, and although a tricameral legislature was created in 1984 to add a facade of democracy, real power never changed hands.

In all that time, no black man or black woman cast a vote or gave a speech at the 17-pound, solid gold ceremonial mace in the great debating hall. No black South African, or black foreigner, could eat in the dining rooms until the white Parliament made a special cafeteria available a few years ago and built a footbridge to provide special access--and keep them out of view.

“This had to disappear,” said Jan van Eck, one of five white members who represent the ANC, pointing at the massive, white-pillared edifice. “This building represents everything that was abhorrent about the old South Africa. This is where policies were made to kill and oppress people.”

Drawings of grinning blacks drinking or dancing still line the long, multihued marble halls. And giant portraits and statues highlight the stone-faced white leaders who conceived apartheid in 1948 to permanently separate the races, then ruthlessly enforced it until De Klerk moved in 1990 to release Mandela from prison.

De Klerk legalized opposition groups and began dismantling the Draconian laws.

By then, the system of legal discrimination had caused tens of thousands of deaths, ravaged countless homes and communities and turned the resource-rich country into an international pariah.

It also fueled an orgy of ethnic, criminal and political violence that has left more than 17,000 dead in the last decade.

The framers hope that the new charter will help heal those horrors.

Roelf Meyer, the government’s chief negotiator, took a break from the debate to consider the two years of often acrimonious talks that he and others endured to produce the complex, 223-page constitution and bill of rights.

The draft was approved by black and white negotiators on Nov. 18.

“It’s a momentous occasion,” Meyer said happily Wednesday. “It’s the end of the old order and the beginning of the new.”

Surprisingly few spectators, and only a handful of blacks, sat in the public galleries to witness the dawn of the new political era.

Outside, unusually stiff southeast winds roared down the historic port’s holiday-clogged streets, inevitably suggesting the cliche that winds of change were finally blowing in the first and last redoubt of white rule.

The only sour note--literally--came from the right. Ferdi Hartzenberg, head of the Conservative Party, furiously called the new charter a “monster” and said his party will not support it, will not join the multiracial power-sharing council and will not participate in next year’s election campaign.

“This is a transition to communism,” he thundered. “This is not a transition to freedom.”

“Order! Order! Order!,” shouted black-robed Speaker of the House Eli Louw, as Hartzenberg’s followers roared huzzahs of approval and heckled other members.

Then the disgruntled group rose to their feet and burst into song, giving a lusty but off-key rendition of “Die Stem,” the Afrikaner nationalist anthem.

A dozen or so whites in the gallery, who clearly had come for the purpose, also stood up to sing. One man was hustled out by guards after he began shrieking at other spectators that they were traitors for not standing and singing as well.

The 45 naysayers in the final tally included all the Conservative Party members and a dozen or so white members of the Inkatha Freedom Party, the Zulu-dominated group led by Mangosuthu Gatsha Buthelezi.

The Inkatha party has also boycotted the democratic process, demanding a greater degree of self-rule for Buthelezi’s apartheid-created Kwazulu homeland in Natal.

“This constitution is flawed,” Inkatha member J. W. Mentz told the chamber. “Its adoption is a formula for constitutional disaster.”

The Inkatha, Conservatives and three other right-wing groups opposed to the ANC have joined forces in the so-called Freedom Alliance.

An accord announced Wednesday gave the coalition until Jan. 24 to continue negotiations on whether to endorse the constitution and elections in exchange for some of the concessions they have demanded.

Provisions of the new constitution, especially those regarding the April elections, will take effect immediately after they are published in the government gazette. The other provisions take effect after the elections.

The charter for the first post-apartheid government includes an ambitious list of fundamental rights that ban discrimination based on race, gender, age, physical disability and even sexual orientation.

The document tries to balance black majority rule with safeguards to reassure whites and others who fear losing their safety and property under a black-led government.

Whites, who form 13% of the population, still own nearly all the land and control the economy, military and civil service.

The new national Parliament--a 400-seat Assembly elected by popular vote plus a 90-seat Senate chosen by the provinces--will choose a president as its first act in office. They will then write laws and simultaneously craft another constitution to replace this one in five years.

The government of national unity will have at least two deputy presidents, one of them possibly De Klerk, and a Cabinet including ministers from any party that wins at least 5% of the popular vote.

The 10 black homelands created under apartheid will be abolished.

The country will be divided into nine provinces, each with its own legislature, premier and constitution, as well as police, schools and hospitals. But the provinces ultimately will be bound by the national constitution and laws adopted here.