F. W. de Klerk was sworn in today as Acting President of South Africa and said that the country was about to enter an era of change. Mr. de Klerk reaffirmed his promises to phase out white rule and involve blacks in talks about South Africa's future, but without submitting whites to what he has called majority domination. ''There is no doubt that we stand on the threshold of a new era in South and southern Africa,'' Mr. de Klerk, the National Party leader, said in a prepared statement. ''History, I believe, offers us a unique opportunity for peaceful solutions.'' Expected to Be President
Mr. de Klerk is widely expected to become President if the National Party wins the parliamentary elections on Sept. 6, as seems probable. The low-key inauguration, in the presidential wing of the Union Buildings, was attended only by his wife, Marike, other Cabinet ministers and a few dozen journalists. At a news conference afterward, Mr. de Klerk paid tribute to his predecessor, P. W. Botha, who resigned on Monday after losing a confrontation with Mr. de Klerk and other members of his Cabinet. Mr. Botha refused to appoint a successor, so Mr. de Klerk was unanimously chosen by his colleagues to fill the vacancy.
Mr. de Klerk said Mr. Botha's ''greatest gift to South Africa'' was that ''he has put our country on the road to fundamental reform, that he successfully started pulling South Africa out of its dead-end streets and that he guided us in the direction of a totally new dispensation.'' A Contrast in Tone Mr. de Klerk's magnanimity contrasted conspicuously with the tone of Mr. Botha's address on Monday night, when he complained that his Cabinet ministers were ignoring him and that Mr. de Klerk was to travel to Zambia to meet President Kenneth D. Kaunda without his permission. Mr. Botha met with Mr. Kaunda in April 1982. Mr. de Klerk told reporters today that his new responsibilities might preclude the visit to Zambia. But tonight, it was disclosed that he had written President Kaunda, saying that he and Foreign Minister Roelof F. Botha would meet the Zambian leader as scheduled in Livingston on Aug. 28. The Foreign Minister's office released the text of a letter that Mr. Kaunda had written earlier assuring President Botha that he did not mean to undercut him but wanted to meet Mr. de Klerk as a person who would occupy a leadership position in the region.
In response to another question, Mr. de Klerk also said that Nelson R. Mandela, South Africa's best-known political prisoner, would not be released before a President was chosen by the electoral college on Sept. 14, a day after the new Parliament is to be convened. Mr. de Klerk said he should not ''in any way whatsoever try to arrange the future'' in his temporary capacity. Frosty Relations Since February Political analysts here said that President Botha, in taking his leave of politics, had tried to hurt Mr. de Klerk and the National Party by sowing doubts about their motives among the white electorate. Mr. de Klerk replaced Mr. Botha as party leader in February after Mr. Botha suffered a stroke, and their relations have been frosty since.
The reaction today of the South African press and public to Mr. Botha's resignation appeared to be one of relief. Business Day, the country's leading financial newspaper, said that ''seldom, if ever, has this country had a leader more widely detested,'' and added, ''It is well that he is gone.'' But one political analyst noted that Mr. Botha still commanded respect among some traditional National Party constituencies and that some whites might vote for the opposition, the right-wing Conservative Party, if they felt the retiring President had been ill used by his party. When a reporter asked Mr. de Klerk about his plans, he replied, ''We want to build a new South Africa in which all people will participate in decisions affecting their lives at all levels of government, but in such a way that no one group amongst the diversity which we have in South Africa will be in a position to dominate others.''
Source: New York Times
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