de Klerk, F(rederik) W(illem)

(born March 18, 1936, Johannesburg, S.Af.) President of South Africa (1989–94). He brought the apartheid system to an end and negotiated a transition to majority rule. Replacing P.W. Botha as leader of the National Party and president, de Klerk quickly moved to release all important political prisoners, including Nelson Mandela, and to lift the ban on the African National Congress. He and Mandela jointly received the 1993 Nobel Peace Prize. Following the country's first universal suffrage elections in 1994, Mandela became president and de Klerk was appointed second deputy president. He retired from politics in 1997.

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