S. Africa, ANC Accused of Secret Deals on Unity Pact : Politics: De Klerk, Mandela say consensus on an interim government is only tentative.

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa — A consensus between negotiators for the African National Congress and this country’s white rulers on a five-year government of national unity came under fire Monday from critics who contend that South Africa’s two most powerful political forces are making secret deals.

And President Frederik W. de Klerk and ANC President Nelson Mandela went to extraordinary lengths to dampen those fears.

The two leaders separately acknowledged that their negotiators were making great strides in bridging the gaps between them, reaching general consensus--they declined to call it agreement--on a variety of issues. But they stressed that any binding agreements on the country’s future could only be reached in multi-party constitutional negotiations.

Those constitutional talks, involving 19 political groups, were suspended last May. The government and the ANC have been working to clear away the most important areas of disagreement between them before formal negotiations resume, perhaps as early as next month.

But the escalating criticism of the ANC-government talks in recent days reflects just how sensitive and difficult it is becoming to produce a final blueprint for the future that can be embraced by the fractious political groups.

Almost everyone agrees that the process must include as many of the country’s political leaders as possible, from Inkatha Freedom Party leader Mangosuthu Gatsha Buthelezi and rightist whites to left-wing black groups.

On the other hand, constitutional talks involving all political leaders in the country will be doomed to failure unless the government and the ANC can resolve the deep-seated disagreements that resulted in the suspension of multi-party negotiations last year.

ANC and government negotiators have been embroiled in lengthy, closed-door talks for months, trying to overcome those obstacles.

And, last week, each side made important compromises, sources from both sides said.

Among other things, the talks produced a consensus on the need for multiracial elections as soon as possible and also on a government of national unity, in which the party winning the most votes would rule along with significant minority parties for five years. In effect, that could postpone complete black-majority rule at least until 1999.

Under those broad areas of agreement, which still must be discussed by the ANC’s executive committee and De Klerk’s Cabinet, the body elected in the first democratic elections also would write a new constitution, to take effect in five years.

The ANC and the government have been reluctant to publicly tout their growing areas of agreement, though, fearing that other political leaders in the country will feel cut out of the process.

“If both players deny there’s been a deal, then one has to accept it,” said David Welsh, a professor of political studies at the University of Cape Town. “But what is undeniable is that there is a very substantial degree of convergence, even if both sides are a little bit apprehensive about the kind of reception this convergence is going to get.”

The agreement, or “convergence,” has come under fire from Buthelezi as well as left-wing black leaders. Buthelezi, leader of the predominantly Zulu Inkatha Freedom Party, has been the most vociferous critic.

A powerful regional leader and bitter rival of the ANC, Buthelezi wants the issue of regional powers decided before a constituent assembly is elected. He fears that a constitution-writing body, elected in a one-person, one-vote nationwide poll, would allow the ANC to severely curtail the powers of his and other regions.

Benny Alexander, secretary general of the left-wing Pan-Africanist Congress, said Monday that the ANC is selling out the black liberation struggle. “We are convinced that the regime and the ANC are going to get married and give birth to a baby named neocolonialism,” he said.