The early years of the 1990s seemed to represent the high-water mark of a global liberal democratic revolution. Though it was clearly not, as Francis Fukuyama famously proposed, the End of History, the collapse of old regimes and the opening of negotiations between old adversaries lent an air of inevitability to the proceedings. South Africa's own transition toward a postapartheid future began on February 2, 1990, when President F. W. de Klerk announced in Parliament that the major opposition groups—the ANC, SACP, and PAC—were to be legalized. This was to be the long-delayed step forward, in which Bantu Authorities and separate development would finally be consigned to the history books and shelved alongside colonialism and indirect rule. History, however, has been known to resist such neat cataloging and closure, and as the negotiations began for what was assumed to be a transition forward to representative democracy and the universal franchise, the doors were suddenly flung open, revealing the possibility that once set into motion, the transition could proceed in any number of different directions.

Following a year of sporadic “talks about talks,” an ANC-led coalition reached agreement with the government on a framework for an all-party conference whose task would be to create the infrastructure for the eventual election of a constituent assembly: an interim government, constitutional principles and process, and a time frame for the transition.