F. W. de Klerk

Born in Johannesburg on 18 March 1936 to an influential Afrikaner family, Frederik Willem de Klerk studied at Potchefstroom University, pursued law, and entered parliament through the National Party, to which he had family ties. He served in P. W. Botha's white-minority government, holding ministerial posts and enforcing the racial segregation system he inherited. When Botha resigned in 1989, de Klerk took over as NP leader and State President - and surprised observers by deciding to end apartheid, driven by the recognition that mounting ethnic violence was pushing the country toward collapse. He legalised banned political parties, freed Nelson Mandela and other imprisoned activists, permitted anti-apartheid marches, and dismantled South Africa's nuclear weapons program, though state security forces under his watch committed widespread abuses and stoked Xhosa-Zulu violence, actions he later denied sanctioning. He negotiated the transition to universal suffrage with Mandela, publicly apologised for apartheid's harms in 1993, and oversaw the 1994 non-racial election that brought Mandela's ANC to power, with his NP finishing second. As Deputy President under Mandel