S. Africans Move Closer to Accord : Elections: Tentative agreement between government, ANC could bring black-majority rule by 1999. Early balloting, interim regime of national unity are proposed.

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa —  The South African government and the African National Congress, after months of closed-door talks, have bridged some of the widest gaps separating them, agreeing on proposals that could postpone black-majority rule until at least 1999.

ANC and government negotiators say they have proposed that the country’s first multiracial elections take place as soon as possible, with the party winning the most votes inviting minority parties with proven support into a government of national unity that would run South Africa for five years.

The proposals, which emerged Saturday after three days of high-level discussions, could significantly speed up the process of negotiations and, ANC sources said, lead to the early lifting of some economic sanctions against South Africa.

The recommendations still need the formal approval of President Frederik W. de Klerk’s Cabinet and Nelson Mandela’s national executive committee, both of which will be meeting this week.

News of the pact was immediately scorned by Zulu Chief Mangosuthu Gatsha Buthelezi, leader of the Inkatha Freedom Party, as a “cozy power-sharing deal” that is “distasteful and dangerous” for the country.

Buthelezi, who believes his minority party to be a significant player in the country’s future, has been engaged in a war of words since September with both the government and the ANC. Political analysts see him as a potentially important obstacle to negotiations but lacking the power to scuttle agreements reached by the ANC and the government.

Any agreements by the ANC and the government would have to be carried into a multi-party constitutional negotiating forum, which is tentatively planned to get under way next month. But the ANC and the government are the two most powerful political forces in the country, and no constitutional negotiations can succeed without their assent.

Under the broad outline agreed to by the government and the ANC, South Africans would go to the polls, perhaps as early as the first half of 1994, and elect a “constituent assembly” that would function both as an interim government and as a constitution-writing body.

Decisions on the new constitution would be made by a two-thirds majority, sources said. But the constitution would not take effect until 1999, at the end of the interim government’s five-year term.

During those five years, the majority party would rule as part of an interim national unity government, in which parties winning a significant proportion of seats in the election would be included. That would probably offer an important role for leaders such as De Klerk and Buthelezi.

No precise formula for the unity government has yet been devised, and it was not clear what powers minority parties would actually have.

Mandela, in a speech Saturday, denied that the ANC would ever agree to “power sharing.” As used in South Africa, that phrase usually implies equal status for majority and minority parties.

But the ANC president acknowledged that the ANC does support an interim government of national unity, in which minority parties would play a part for “a limited period after the adoption of a new constitution.”

Whether or not the ANC and the government have reached full agreement on the details of the proposals, analysts said the two sides are closer than ever to agreement on a blueprint for the country’s future.

The ANC-government talks appeared to have generated key compromises on both sides, analysts said.

“We have moved closer to each other,” said Fanus Schoeman, the government’s deputy minister of constitutional development. And he said the lengthy talks, which concluded with three days of closed-door meetings last week, resulted in “substantial progress. We are now talking about the real issues that divide us.”

An agreement to a fixed period of national unity government reflects an important change in policy for De Klerk’s government. It could give the ruling National Party a say in governing the country for the next five years, even if the ANC, as expected, wins a majority of the votes in the first democratic elections. But the government originally had wanted a much longer period of power sharing, and such a deal would in effect create a sunset clause for white-minority power in South Africa.

“It ensures that the National Party cannot go into an election and play hardball simply because the constitution entrenches its place in government,” said Sampie Terreblanche, a political analyst at Stellenbosch University. Terreblanche said the new proposals are a “drastic” shift in government policy.

De Klerk also has previously insisted that the powers and functions of regions in a new South Africa be clearly agreed to before the first elections. Now, the government has agreed with the ANC that the powers of regional governments can be decided by the elected constituent assembly, in which the ANC would be likely to have a majority but probably not the two-thirds vote necessary to control the constitution-writing process.

The question of regional power is one of the thorniest issues facing South Africa’s leaders. Buthelezi, whose power base is almost exclusively in Natal province, wants strong regional autonomy. And he has argued that regions should together decide the powers of a central government. A strong central government would probably blunt Buthelezi’s own power, and he fears that it could mean ANC hegemony over his Inkatha Freedom Party.

“How (do) the two parties plan to impose such undemocratic, top-down connivance on . . . the governments in these regions?” Buthelezi asked Saturday.

“There is no possibility whatsoever of the Inkatha Freedom Party . . . accepting that a constituent assembly, elected in the current climate of violence and intimidation, will decide on the boundaries, powers, functions and structures of the regions,” he added. “It is simply out of the question.”

Buthelezi has lately become closely allied with right-wing whites and homeland leaders seeking strong regional autonomy.

The right-wing Conservative Party said Saturday that a deal between the ANC and the government would lead to further political turmoil.

Tom Langley, a Conservative member of Parliament, said the results of ANC-government talks indicated clearly “that the National Party and the ANC are in alliance with one another, to the exclusion of all other parties.”

De Klerk and his negotiators have strongly denied any alliance with the ANC. They note that the future of the country can be decided only in negotiations, and the government has held lengthy talks with Inkatha, the Conservative Party and other parties on the political right and left, including the ANC.

Moderate politicians in South Africa have long welcomed talks between the ANC and the government, arguing that the country will have a peaceful future only if those two adversaries work together.

“Anybody in his senses would rather trust a combination of the ANC and (De Klerk’s) National Party than either one alone,” said Zach de Beer, leader of the liberal Democratic Party. “The National Party would work as a check on the totalitarian tendencies of the ANC, and the ANC would be a check on the tendencies of racial superiority exhibited by the National Party.”