Frederik Willem de Klerk was a South African politician who served as state president of South Africa from 1989 to 1994 and as deputy president from 1994 to 1996. As South Africa's last head of state from the era of white-minority rule, he and his government dismantled the apartheid system and introduced universal suffrage. Ideologically a social conservative and an economic liberal, he led the National Party (NP) from 1989 to 1997.
de Klerk in 1990
de Klerk and Nelson Mandela shake hands at the Annual Meeting of the World Economic Forum held in Davos, January 1992
The chair of the TRC, Desmond Tutu, was frustrated that de Klerk did not take responsibility for the actions of the state security services in the early 1990s
de Klerk with U.S. secretary of state Hillary Clinton in 2012
State President of South Africa
The State President of the Republic of South Africa was the head of state of South Africa from 1961 to 1994. The office was established when the country became a republic on 31 May 1961, outside the Commonwealth of Nations, and Queen Elizabeth II ceased to be Queen of South Africa. The position of Governor-General of South Africa was accordingly abolished. From 1961 to 1984, the post was largely ceremonial. After constitutional reforms enacted in 1983 and taking effect in 1984, the State President became an executive post, and its holder was both head of state and head of government.
State President of South Africa
De Tuynhuys, used as the Cape Town office of the State President, now the office of the President of South Africa
Image: CR Swart 1960
Image: Dönges cropped
