South Africa Government

The subject was Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic. There were suggestions he might seek asylum in South Africa. Would he be prevented from entering the country? "No, we will not ban anybody," President Nelson Mandela told reporters here last month. "What we condemn are his actions." Mandela's statement sent journalists scurrying. "Milosevic Is Welcome in South Africa," screamed the headlines. Later, Mandela complained that the media had "gravely distorted" his remarks.

When Parliament convenes Monday to elect Thabo Mbeki of the ruling African National Congress as this country's second black president, it will also welcome a new leader of the shrunken opposition. Tony Leon, a 42-year-old lawyer who heads the Democratic Party, will become South Africa's highest-ranking white politician by virtue of his party's distant second-place finish in the June 2 elections. The Democrats won 38 seats in the 400-seat lower house of Parliament; the ANC won 266.

The man expected to be the next president of South Africa, Thabo Mbeki, wears smart suits and boasts a British education. He can recite the poetry of William Butler Yeats by heart. He was married in an English castle and has lived half his 56 years outside South Africa. But home is here in the rolling hills of the secluded Eastern Cape, where people favor mud huts and English is the language of outsiders.

In a stinging setback for the truth panel that has delved into this country's apartheid past, a court on Tuesday overturned former President Pieter W. Botha's conviction on charges of refusing to testify about the secrets of his white-minority regime. Botha, 83, who led South Africa from 1978 to 1989, declared his gratitude for the ruling "on behalf of all South Africans who love their country."

Election day in this village off the main highway from Pretoria will be a nuts-and-bolts affair. Most everyone who goes to the polls Wednesday is expected to mark the second box from the top: African National Congress. "Many expectations from the last vote have not been met," said Jabulani Mtsweni, a local ANC activist who has been canvassing voters. "But we've been patient for 350 years--why can't we be patient for another five?"

This dusty ranching town looks and feels a lot like Texas. The biggest happening within miles is the weekly cattle auction. The landscape is flat, dry savannah. Late last century, the town served as the capital of a maverick white republic whose flag featured a single star. But when William Langeveldt moved back home to Vryburg a few years ago after living in the United States, he was reminded of an American town during the civil rights struggle. "Vryburg is the Birmingham, Ala.

When you visit the new deputy presiding judge at the High Court here, a white attendant directs you to a parking space. A white official greets you at the entrance. A white guard checks your bags. A white escort accompanies you to the chambers, where a white secretary seats you. The regal-looking man in the red robe and pressed ruffles is the judge. He is one of the few blacks in the building.

After settling into the unfamiliar role of running the country, the African National Congress issued a candid self-assessment of how things were going. The Rev. Makhenkesi Stofile, the ANC chief whip in Parliament and later a provincial premier, acknowledged what a jolt coming into power had been for the former underground movement. Not only were most members of Parliament unable to find their way around government offices, he said, but they also didn't know how to act toward their staff.

Albert Gamakulu has moved up in the world. Since his uncle, Nelson Mandela, was elected this country's first black president five years ago, Gamakulu and his family have taken up residence in a one-room house with windows of flattened cardboard boxes and torn flour sacks. Going to the toilet still means a trip through the cornfield to his parents' outhouse. Running water is the tip-of-the-bucket variety collected from a roadside tap.