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Mandela's unconditional release is widely regarded as the key to implementing the government's promises of reform. It is believed that if anyone can bridge the vast divides between whites and blacks, and among the blacks themselves, Mandela can. The white government looks on him as a born- again moderate, a "man you can negotiate with," as De Klerk himself decided. For blacks, Mandela may be the one who, as the personification of their long suffering, can help them transcend the disagreements over strategy and allegiance that have splintered their strength, and bargain on equal terms with the whites.
When he is freed, Mandela will walk out into a world vastly different from the strict apartheid society he vowed to overthrow. Starting with then Prime Minister P.W. Botha's warning in 1979 that whites must "adapt or die," the idea of changing national institutions and the realization that power should be shared with the black majority have moved into the mainstream. That change of attitude has been given real impetus in the five months since De Klerk was elected to succeed Botha. With a speed that surprised almost everyone, the new and little-known President made a series of conciliatory moves, unofficially lifting a 30-year restriction on mass protests, releasing several prominent political prisoners and giving restricted antiapartheid groups some leeway to operate.
But De Klerk's most important step was to begin a personal dialogue with Mandela, a revered leader of the African National Congress. The government wanted to speed up the "talks about talks," designed to get formal negotiations under way. On Dec. 13, at the presidential residence in Cape Town known as Tuynhuys, the two men held the first of a planned series of meetings on ways to convene an indaba (Zulu for "negotiations") that would write a new constitution granting blacks the right to vote for a national government. The meeting signaled that De Klerk, unlike his predecessors, was willing to negotiate with the outlawed 78-year-old A.N.C., which only months ago was still officially vilified as a band of terrorists.
The step was a huge psychological leap for the National Party. But, acknowledges Roelf Meyer, Deputy Minister for Constitutional Development, "there is no chance of a legitimate process of negotiations if only three- quarters of the players are around the table." Adds Education Minister Stoffel van der Merwe: "Mr. de Klerk has fully accepted that blacks, whoever they are, have a right to participate."
With expectations growing daily, antiapartheid leaders will be listening closely this Friday when De Klerk delivers his maiden state of the nation address to the opening session of Parliament in Cape Town. They want the President to outline a timetable for negotiations and to meet the main conditions blacks have laid down for participation: Mandela's release, an end to the 1986 state of emergency and the lifting of bans on antiapartheid organizations.