JOHANNESBURG, South Africa -- White voters overwhelmingly backed President Frederik de Klerk's racial reforms in a historic referendum that moved South Africa further toward black majority rule and rejected the shackles of apartheid, results showed Wednesday.
'Today we have closed the book on apartheid, and that chapter is finally closed,' de Klerk told cheering crowds in front of his Cape Town residence. He looked forward to the 'building of one nation in one undivided South Africa.'
Indirectly referring to the fact that Wednesday was his 56th birthday, de Klerk added, 'Today is the real birthday of the real new South Africa.'
After a massive 85 percent turnout of the 3.3 million whites eligible to vote in the whites-only referendum Tuesday, the final poll showed 1, 924,186 voted for reform -- more than double the 875,619 who voted against.
That translated into a 68.61 percent 'yes' vote, or more than two- thirds in support of de Klerk. It was a landslide vastly exceeding de Klerk's stated 60-percent goal.
Opposition Conservative Party leader Andries Treurnicht conceded defeat in the referendum, which asked whites if they supported the abolition of apartheid and wanted a new constitution giving the vote to blacks.
'Mr. de Klerk has won his referendum,' Treurnicht told a news conference in Pretoria. 'That is clear.'
The Conservative Party had sought a 'no' vote, and proposed either a return to apartheid or at least a racial partition of South Africa.
By mid-afternoon, only one regional 'no' majority had been recorded -- a 57.1 percent negative vote in Pietersburg in the conservative heartland of northern Transvaal, 187 miles north of Johannesburg.
Liberal coastal Durban had the highest rate of 'yes' votes -- 84.9 percent of the 240,000 people who voted supported the president. Cape Town was a close second with an 84.7 percent positive vote.
African National Congress President Nelson Mandela said he had telephoned de Klerk, whose 56th birthday was Wednesday, to congratulate him.
'I thought that it was proper for me not only to congratulate him on his birthday, but to wish him well,' Mandela told a Johannesburg news conference.
'It's a great relief that whites have voted for reform and we would urge whites not to fear or have reservations about a majority government,' Mandela said.
There was an immediate international response even before final results were in, as Denmark -- formerly the European nation most reluctant to lift anti-apartheid economic sanctions against South Africa -- announced it was scrapping them effective Friday.
In Washington, the State Department welcomed the outcome of the voting 'for a just and democratic future' in South Africa.
'In voting 'yes,' white voters affirmed that negotiations offer the only path to a secure future for all South Africans,' spokeswoman Margaret Tutwiler said.
'They rejected a 'no' option that would have led to a return of international isolation and domestic discord,' she said. 'All South Africans have a stake in their country's future and a right to make their views known. The way forward to a negotiated settlement is now more open than ever.'
President Bush telephoned de Klerk Wednesday, congratulating him on the victory in the referendum and reiterating his support for reform in South Africa. The White House supplied no additional details of the conversation.
De Klerk called the referendum three weeks ago in response to a Conservative Party challenge that he no longer represented the majority of whites and should stop negotiating with anti-apartheid groups on their behalf.
'Do you support the continuation of the reform process which the State President began on the 2nd February 1990, and which is aimed at a new constitution through negotiations?' was the question on Tuesday's ballot.
De Klerk's government has been involved in talks with black leaders, working toward a multi-racial transitional government that could take power this year as part of the move toward black majority rule. One goal of the talks is a new constitution that would restructure the political landscape and establish full voting rights for blacks.
Fears that urban liberal whites would not bother to vote proved groundless. De Klerk's National Party estimated Wednesday morning total voter turnout had been 71 percent, with good response in the cities.
A 'no' vote would have led to de Klerk's resignation and a possible future Conservative Party government.
The victory, however, means there will likely never again be a whites-only vote in South Africa.
'There won't be any need for a specific test of that constituency again,' de Klerk promised Feb. 24, when he announced the referendum. 'I would regard a 'yes' vote as authority to enter into binding agreements' on South Africa's constitutional future.
A massive polling turn-out across South Africa Tuesday led analysts to predict the president would win his referendum comfortably, by about 60 percent against 40 percent. But by mid-morning Wednesday, they had revised the figures upwards.
Analysts said the massive 85 percent turnout probably led to the landslide, nullifying fears that apathetic liberal whites would avoid the polls.
Donald Simpson of the University of Potchefstroom had predicted a 67 percent 'yes' vote, noting that was the combined percentage of de Klerk's National Party vote and the liberal Democratic Party vote in the 1989 election.
The referendum had forged an uneasy alliance between the two parties, against radical right-wingers.
In effect, Simpson noted, despite voter defections from de Klerk at three by-elections over the past year, whites had not changed their basic political affiliations since the president embarked on reform.
The CP's Treurnicht, acknowledging defeat, blamed an intensive media campaign, foreign intervention and employer pressure on workers for the de Klerk victory, but said his opposition to reform would continue.
'The struggle for our freedom and survival continues,' he said. 'That struggle has today entered a new phase.'
'We are still a political party and we will continue to use constitutional means. Violence is not an option,' Treurnicht said.
