On 2 February 1990, apartheid President F.W. de Klerk made a trailblazing announcement to release Nelson Mandela and unban the African National Congress (ANC), the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC), the South African Communist Party (SACP) and other liberation movements. This was received with mixed feelings inside and outside Parliament. Black and White South Africans celebrated the news as they were optimistic that the country was taking a turn for equality.
“It was a breathtaking moment, for in one sweeping action he had virtually normalized the situation in South Africa. Our world had changed overnight. After forty years of persecution and banishment, the ANC was now a legal organization. I and all my comrades could no longer be arrested for being a member of the ANC, for carrying its green, yellow and black banner, for speaking its name. For the first time in almost thirty years, my picture and my words, and those of all my banned comrades, could appear in South African newspapers.” – Nelson Mandela, 1994, “Long Walk to Freedom”.
Exactly, on the same date, the year before, 2 February 1989, P. W. Botha had suffered a mild stroke and, on the same day, announced his intention to resign the National Party presidency while remaining State President. His resignation shocked his colleagues and led to an internal succession process in the party that culminated in the appointment of F. W. de Klerk.
P.W. Botha presided over South Africa when violence and state suppr
