Frederik de Klerk, who shared the Nobel Peace Prize with Nelson Mandela and who, as the last president of the apartheid regime in South Africa, oversaw the end of the domination of the country’s white minority, has died at the age of 85.
Mr de Klerk died after a battle with cancer at his home in Cape Town’s Fresnaye region, a spokesperson for the FW de Klerk Foundation confirmed on Thursday.
Mr de Klerk was a controversial figure in South Africa, where many blamed him for violence against black South Africans and anti-apartheid activists during his tenure, while some whites viewed his efforts to end apartheid like a betrayal.
It was Mr. de Klerk who, in a speech to the South African Parliament on February 2, 1990, announced that Nelson Mandela would be released from prison after 27 years. The announcement electrified a country that for decades had been despised and sanctioned by much of the world for its brutal system of racial discrimination known as apartheid.
As South Africa’s isolation worsened and its once-strong economy deteriorated, Mr de Klerk, who had been elected president five months earlier, also announced in the same speech the lifting of the ban on the African National Congress and other anti-apartheid political groups.
In the midst of the upheavals, several deputies had left the hemicycle while he was speaking.
Nine days later, Mr. Mandela was free.
Four years later, Mr Mandela was elected the country’s first black president as black South Africans voted for the first time.
At that time, MM. de Klerk and Mandela had already received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993 for their often strained cooperation to distance South Africa from institutionalized racism and move towards democracy.