Quick facts about F. W. de Klerk, South Africa’s last apartheid president

South Africa’s last apartheid president, F. W. de Klerk, who oversaw the end of the country’s white minority rule is dead.

TheNewsGuru.com (TNG) reports a spokesman for the F.W. de Klerk Foundation confirmed the development on Thursday.

He stated that de Klerk died aged 85 after a battle against cancer at his home in the Fresnaye area of Cape Town.

Below are some quick facts to know about F. W. de Klerk

1. F. W. de Klerk, an apartheid-era South African leader, was born in Johannesburg to an influential Afrikaner family.
2. De Klerk helped South Africa to bring about the end of white-minority rule
3. He is the one who announced the release of Nelson Mandela from prison after 27 years in a speech to South Africa’s parliament on Feb. 2, 1990.
4. De Klerk helped orchestrate the release of Nelson Mandela, with whom he later shared the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993.
5. However, for many South Africans he never did enough to fully atone for apartheid or for the human rights abuses carried out by the security forces when he was president.
6. He studied law and worked as an attorney for several years until he was elected to parliament as a National Party candidate in 1972.
7. He went on to hold several top ministerial posts before being elected president in 1989, a position he held until 1994.
8. De Klerk left behind his wife Elita, his children Jan and Susan, as well as his grandchildren.