On February 1990, 1 1 day, Mandela, who had been imprisoned for 27 years, walked out of Victor West prison near Cape Verde with a smile. In the following four years, Mandela and his ANC, together with all black resistance organizations, held arduous constitutional negotiations with De Klerk's Kuomintang government, aiming at ending apartheid and promoting the democratic process in South Africa.

Mandela and de Klerk also won the 1993 Nobel Peace Prize for their outstanding contributions to promoting the democratic process and abolishing apartheid in South Africa.