Mandela hails act of rebirth from evil past

Cape Town - South Africa adopted a permanent post-apartheid constitution yesterday, putting aside divisions between black and white-led parties for what President Nelson Mandela called the nation's rebirth from a horrible past.

Members of both houses of the first all-race parliament, gathered together as the special Constitutional Assembly approved the new constitution by a sweeping majority following an 11th-hour deal to bury remaining differences.

"And so it has come to pass that South Africa today undergoes her rebirth, cleansed of a horrible past, matured from a tentative beginning and reaching out to the future with confidence," Mr Mandela told the assembly in Cape Town.

"This is our national soul, our compact with one another as citizens," the ANC leader said. "Never again shall the laws of our land rend our people apart, or legalise their oppression and repression. Together we shall march, hand in hand, to a brighter future."

The last-minute accord saved the country from a divisive referendum at a time when the economy is under pressure and political killings in the Zulu heartland have delayed local elections there.

The majority ANC and the white-led National Party (NP) clinched their deal after reaching compromises on the right to single-language education, branded an apartheid hangover by the ANC, property rights and employer lock-outs.

The new constitution was opposed by only two votes, although others abstained. It replaces the two-year transitional document and will be phased in by 1999, when new elections will choose the first majority-rule government.

The ANC heads a government of national unity with the NP and the Zulu-led Inkatha Freedom Party, which boycotted the constitutional talks and yesterday's historic session of parliament.

Deputy President FW de Klerk, South Africa's last white leader, who shared a Nobel peace prize with Mr Mandela, said the constitution was flawed.

The NP chief said his support was motivated partly by the fact that a "no" vote would have forced South Africa into "an inevitably confrontational referendum [that] could damage the interests of our country irreparably". But NP sources said the party might now quit the coalition government, as it felt its voice was ignored.

"There is a very strong sentiment in the party that the time has come to pull out of the government of national unity," one senior NP source said.

Inkatha's 48 members of parliament were nowhere to be seen during the vote.

The 10 members of the right-wing Freedom Front, whose dreams of a separate white homeland have faded, abstained. Nine other votes were not recorded and two lone legislators from a Christian party which wanted abortion outlawed, voted against.

A deal had to be in place by a deadline of today, a day before the second anniversary of Mr Mandela's inauguration.