The son of [Jan de Klerk]?, a minister in the South African government, F. W. de Klerk was born in Johannesburg?, South Africa. He was first elected to the South African Parliament in 1969 and the member for Vereeniging?, and became a cabinet minister in 1978. After a long political career and with a very conservative reputation, in 1989 he placed himself at the head of progressive forces within the governing party, and led a palace revolution to oust the former president [P.W. Botha]?. He shocked the country by unbanning the ANC and other organisations in February 1990 and starting on a series of negotiations to end apartheid. After the non-racial elections in 1994, he served for a while as deputy president in Nelson Mandela's government, but a messy divorce and lack of support from his own party soon saw him retiring from politics.
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