Frederik Willem de Klerk DMS (born 18 March 1936) is a South African politician who served as State President of South Africa from 1989 to 1994 and as Deputy President from 1994 to 1996. South Africa's last head of state from the era of white-minority rule, his government focused on dismantling the apartheid system and introducing universal suffrage. Ideologically a conservative, he led the National Party from 1989 to 1997.
Born in Johannesburg to an influential Afrikaner family, de Klerk joined the Broederbond while at university. Under the rule of P. W. Botha, he held a succession of ministerial posts and enforced the apartheid system. De Klerk helped to broker the end of apartheid, South Africa's policies of racial segregation and discrimination, and supported the transformation of South Africa into a non-racial democracy by entering negotiations that resulted in all citizens having equal rights. He won the Félix Houphouët-Boigny Peace Prize in 1991, the Prince of Asturias Award in 1992 and the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993 along with Nelson Mandela for his role in ending the apartheid system.
He was one of the deputy presidents of South Africa during the presidency of Nelson Mandela until 1996, and is the most recent white South African and Afrikaner to have held the position. In 1997, he retired from active politics. He continues to remain active as a lecturer internationally. He has gone on to praise Mandela's work and speak of their friendship. After the deaths of P. W. Botha in 2006 and Marais Viljoen in 2007, de Klerk is the last surviving State President of South Africa.