Today, de Klerk said, the ANC -- the party in control -- is too powerful, its leaders have lost their "moral compass, " and it needs to split.
But the ruling party - the ANC - still leans heavily on its liberation history, and on Mr Mandela in particular, and it does have a lot to lose.
"The problem in South Africa is that everyone wants to run the country, " he said, arguing that the ANC - with its hefty parliamentary majority - should be "given space to do its work".
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The stand-off is thought to have taken place between the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) - allied to the ruling African National Congress (ANC) party - and the militant Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (Amcu).
But Congress of the People, a breakaway faction of the ANC, and opposition party Democratic Alliance hoped to pull enough support to bring the ANC below two-thirds.
Members of parliament -- in which the ANC is virtually assured of having a majority -- will elect the president next month.
In the 1960s, Liliesleaf Farm was the headquarters of Umkhonto we Sizwe, the military wing of the then-banned ANC.
Earlier this month, he was re-elected ANC leader, beating off a challenge by his rival, Kgalema Motlanthe.
Gwede Mantashe, the ANC's secretary-general, lashed out at the constitutional court judges for going public with their accusations against Mr Hlophe before following the proper complaint procedures.
The BBC's Peter Biles in Johannesburg says that coming from South Africa - the most powerful country in the region - the ANC statement is a further sign of Mr Mugabe's growing isolation.
Presumed president-to-be Jacob Zuma -- an ethnic Zulu whose flamboyant style sits in contrast to more staid predecessors Nelson Mandela and Thabo Mbeki -- led a raucous rally in Johannesburg, telling thousands of cheering supporters the ANC will outstrip its goal of two-thirds control in parliament.
ANC's former secretary-general, left politics for business last year, Mr Mbeki is virtually sure of being South Africa's next president.
When South Africa's ruling African National Congress (ANC) first introduced inflation-targeting about 12 years ago, he had been bullish on South Africa, he admits.
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But the ANC, with its two-thirds parliamentary majority, is more than able to weather criticism in parliament, at least until the prosecutors have made a decision.
Some analysts believe that by acting against Mr Malema, Mr Zuma believed that he was removing a key opponent as he seeks re-election as ANC leader in December.
Then there's the ANC's own Julius Malema - hardly a Cicero but an undisputed master of the punchy soundbite.
And when her husband, Walter Sisulu, became Secretary-General of the ANC, it was up to her to provide for their family.
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So the guess is that the ANC will still get a good two-thirds of the vote in the coming election, on April 22nd.
Neither the Congress of the People (COPE), a splinter of the ANC, nor the once formidable Zulu-dominated Inkatha Freedom Party seemed sure to survive, as their share of the poll plummeted.
The ANC believed that Ms Ramphele was "grievance-driven", and had failed to offer solutions to problems that South Africa faced, Mr Mthembu added.
The BBC's Africa analyst Martin Plaut says the ANC leader is still something of an enigma - part Zulu traditionalist, part international leader who jets around the world.
In 1990, the South African government responded to internal and international pressure and freed him, at the same time lifting the ban against the anti-apartheid African National Congress (ANC).
For the first time since then, the all-powerful African National Congress (ANC) was challenged by an opposition party able to point to its own perky record in local government and contrast it with the ANC's fairly dismal one.
Most pollsters are suggesting that the overall ANC vote will fall only slightly, to 61-64%, that the DA will get 11-16%, and that COPE will come a close third with a commendable 9-15%.
South Africa's apartheid government had designated the ANC a terrorist organization during the group's decades-long struggle against whites-only rule.
The ANC government has set up Africa's only broad-based welfare state, providing cash benefits to 12.5m people compared with just 3m in 1996.
"This is the first time a substantial body of workers is splitting away" from the ANC's union, said Devan Pillay, a labor-relations professor at Wits University.
During their policy conference in May 1992, the ANC made specific commitments to education in South Africa, inter-alia, provision of a minimum of 10years free and compulsory education, provision for those with special learning needs, improving educational quality, ensuring education for young people expelled or having dropped out of school as a consequence of apartheid, provision of adult education, leading to the establishment of a single non-racial, equal and democratic education system.
It is worth mentioning that the ANC, for all its flaws, has plenty of good people - and achievements - under its belt.
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