II. Politics in the Early 1990s
    When F. W. De Klerk, National Party leader and President of the country, unbanned the African Nation Congress (ANC) on February 2, 1990, the ANC started on a journey that would take it from a revolutional movement to a political party by 1994.  As the symbol of anti-apartheid it became a wanton framework of liberal ideologies.  Today it is a political organization representing a majority of the blacks in South Africa (Ottaway, 1994).  In December 1991, the National Party decided to rely on power-sharing instead of group representation to contain the ANC under majority rule.  That is when Chief Buthelezi of the Zulu tribe and President Mangope of Bophuthatswana ask than their nations be able to send delegates to the transition process (i.e. forming the new government under a new constitution) as they wantee self-determination for all groups (Ottaway, 1994).
    On March 17, 1992 68.7% of the 2.3 million whites who voted approved the transition to majority rule (Ottaway, 1994: 119).  This was with the National Party having all the media assets to control the outcome.  The Conservative Party (right of the center whites' party) wanted the "right of self-determination for all ethnic groups" as they saw the decomposing "of the Soviet Union and the former Yugoslavia" as evidence "that a multiethnic state" would not succeed (Ottaway, 1994: 126).  The Rueterwag  (of the Afrikaner Broederland) suggested ten provinces in a federal system (Humphries & Shubane 1991: 87).  The ANC has maintain that its position since 1955 has been a "unitary...non-racial and democratic" South Africa, yet since 1994 the ANC has work with  the homelands' resentatives because the ANC recognizes it needs them to move South Africa toward a united but democratic state (Humphries & Shubane 1991: 87-8).
    In July 1993, after the date was set for the first majority vote election, the Conservative and the IFP (Inkata Freedom Party, headed by Chief Buthelezi) left the talks and formed the Freedom Alliance, which also contained the Afrikaner Volksfront (AVF), a front organization for eighteen far-right groups and the homeland governments of Ciskei, KwaZulu, and Bophuthatswana.  The Alliance was concern with the fear of the minority, "the power of the majority (Schneidman 1994: 168)."  Talks between the ANC and the AVF resulted in the AVF thinking about participating in the elections and the ANC agreeing to a province for the Afrikaners.  The IFP wanted regional powers that the government in Pretoria could not overturn and the AVF decided on January 30, 1994 to declare "symbolic independence" and called on Afrikaners to hold their own separate elections on the date the rest of the nation voted in the majority rule election (Schneidman 169).
    The Government of National Unity took power in 1994.  The democratic culture of the whites has lead to a "space [of time] to create a democratic culture and society for South Africa (Friedman 1991: 194-5).  The aparthied homelands did not succeed because of their geographic fragmentation, yet the homelands became the basis for the nine provinces in the new South Africa (Humphries&Shubane).
 
III. The Government, Political Parties, and the Issues in 1998
 

ANC      252

NP          82

IFP          43

FF             9

DP            7

PAC          5

ADCP        2

Total      400

   The four largest parties in the Parliament of South Africa are the African National Congress (ANC) which controls the Government of National Unity, the National Party (NP), the Inkata Freedom Party (IFP), and the Freedom Front (FF) .
    The ANC, who is the majority  party  in the South African Parliament supports a redistribution of the wealth from the whites to all the people through its Reconstrution and Development Programme as it reflected in its Freedom Charter (Mandella 1994).
    The National Party is largest opposition party but its goal is to be a multiracial party representing all the different groups. The NP supports internal self-determination for the separate culture groups in a federal South Africa.
    The Inkata Freedom Party (IFP) is the party of the rural Zulus in Natal. The IFP believes there needs to be a "new social and economic plan" for South Africa after the 1999 elections (Resolutions 1998).  The economic plan would be more private investment oriented than the ANC's RDP (Economy 1998).  The IFP wants a devolution of power with the provinces and the people having most of the power under a constitution which recognizes this (Constitutional Affairs 1998).
    Today the FF is the party of the Afrikaaner people who desire a homeland.

IV. The Politics of the Economy
    The governments goals of its 1997 economic program, "Growth, Employment, and Distribution (GEAR)" failed in everything but its inflation goal (.8% less than expected, but still 8.9%) according to the US government (South Africa 1997).  The RDP, the government's socialist policy takes almost six/tenths of the government's budget (South Africa 1997).  As the greatest mining and manufacturing African nation the government must help those sectors of the economy and trade to improved so as to build  up the economy so all South Africans can have a higher standard of living.