F. W. de Klerk

De Klerk's negotiations with Mandela and other parties helped secure the 1993 interim constitution and the route to South Africa's first national democratic election. The settlement provided transitional arrangements and constitutional principles that would constrain the later elected constitution-making body. His role was that of the outgoing minority government's leader within a wider negotiated transition, not the sole giver of democracy. Its durable effect was to make the transfer of power compatible with an enforceable constitutional settlement.