Striking a Grand Deal

By MARGUERITE MICHAELS

Bleary-eyed as the clock ticked past midnight, the negotiators bargained over final details. At last, nine hours late, 19 men ascended the podium in the cavernous convention center and signed, one by one, a draft constitution giving equal rights to South Africans of every color. The last-minute delay was nothing to blacks who had waited generations for this moment. "We have reached the end of an era," declared a triumphant Nelson Mandela, leader of the African National Congress. President F.W. de Klerk agreed: "South Africa will never be the same again."

That is the hope. The new law of the land is a package of compromises designed to bring full democracy and a long list of fundamental rights to 28 million increasingly impatient blacks, while assuring 5 million apprehensive whites that black rule will not threaten their lives and livelihoods. After elections scheduled for April 27, the country will be governed by a two-house parliament, one elected by proportional representation, the other by nine new provincial legislatures, that will write a permanent constitution. The President, chosen by the winning party, will oversee a Cabinet of 27 ministers, including representatives from any party that wins 5% of the vote. A powerful constitutional court will back up the guarantees of equal treatment for all.

The fear is that this interim constitution, which puts in place a government of national unity for the next five years, will not fulfill its promise of a reasonable balance of power to those who distrust Mandela and the A.N.C. De Klerk called the draft "a product of compromise" that could be either "a charter for peace" or "a prescription for powermongering." Ominously, the Zulu-based Inkatha Freedom Party and several white separatist groups -- which have rejected the negotiations, threatened to boycott the elections and even hinted at armed resistance -- stayed away from the signing. They continue to insist that regions with strong ethnic composition be granted the right of autonomy or even total independence.

To clinch the deal, De Klerk had to abandon demands for ironclad guarantees that whites and other minorities would share power indefinitely. He had sought a system in which whites would in effect have a permanent veto in such vital affairs of state as defense, foreign policy and the economy. But last week he gave up his insistence that the new coalition Cabinet could act only with a two-thirds vote. Instead the President will be required merely to consult the Cabinet in a "consensus-seeking" spirit.

Concessions were made by the other side as well. Mandela's A.N.C., a strong advocate of centralized government, agreed to a system that will provide a share in decision making to the nine provincial legislatures and police forces. And despite intense pressure to place A.N.C. supporters in government jobs, Mandela agreed not to throw 1.2 million employees of the white-dominated civil service out on the street.

The interim constitution is a heartening milestone in South Africa's bloodied march toward democracy. At least 12,000 people have died in factional violence in the four years since Mandela was released from prison and De Klerk lifted the ban on the A.N.C. But shared power is not a South African tradition. With Mandela's A.N.C. enjoying a commanding lead in the pre- election polls, die-hard supporters of racial separation or ethnic self- determination must decide whether to accept the new government as a legitimate institution or work to undermine it.

With reporting by Scott MacLeod/Johannesburg