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These incipient foreign policy principles were born of uncertainty. One aspect ofthis uncertainty in the closing stages of the apartheid era derived from the partylevel. Evans interprets the ANC’s failure to come to terms with balancing itsloyalties to the anti-colonial struggle and choosing its own economic path on onehand, and to advancing development domestically, along widely accepted standards(global capitalism) internationally, to the failure of the organisation to re-calibrate itsloyalties and theoretical bearings after the fall of Communism in 1989. 211 (This willbe discussed in greater detail in Chapter 5).The policymaking process since the end of Apartheid may usefully be divided intotwo distinct phases: a phase of transition and a phase of consolidation. 212 Duringthe transition, which lasted roughly from the end of the 1980s with the firstovertures by South African government intelligence personnel to the ANC in exile,neither side could claim an outright victory. The consequent political settlement,referred to variously by analysts as a ‘pacted transition’ 213 and an ‘elite transition’ 214 ,entailed a number of far-reaching compromises by the African National Congress,most notably, and crucially, in the economic sphere. Nonetheless, transformation –of policymaking instruments and outcomes – was a priority for the incomingGovernment of National Unity, of which the ANC was a majority member.According to van Nieuwkerk, a number of immediate policy changes wereintroduced. Importantly, the focus of government policy across all sectors became,at least in theory, the needs of the black majority. 215 Consolidation, meanwhile,Foreign Affairs”, 31 August 1999. Accessed online at:http://www.pmg.org.za/minutes/19990830-departments-mineral-energy-and-foreignaffairs-briefingon 7 April, 2010.211 Evans, “South Africa in Remission”, 255.212 Comprehensive overviews are provided in Chris Alden and Garth le Pere, “SouthAfrica’s Post-Apartheid Foreign Policy – From Reconciliation to Revival?”, AdelphiPaper, 43, Issue 362, (London: International Institute for Strategic Studies, 2003); andAnthoni Van Nieuwkerk, “South Africa’s Post-Apartheid Foreign Policy Decision-Makingon African Crises”, unpublished PhD Thesis (Johannesburg: University of theWitwatersrand, 2006).213 Steven Friedman, “South Africa’s pacted transition” in Comparing Brazil and SouthAfrica: Two Transitional States in Political and Economic Perspective, eds., S. Friedmanand R de Villiers (Centre for Policy Studies, Foundation for Global Dialogue and Institutode Estudos Economicos) cited in Van Nieuwkerk, 91.214 Patrick Bond, Elite Transition: From Apartheid to Neoliberalism in South Africa(London: Pluto Press, 2000), cited in van Nieuwkerk, 91.215 Van Nieuwkerk, “South Africa and African Crises”, 101-102.110