SPLIT IN SOUTH AFRICA'S COALITION RULE BRINGS COUNTRY'S `SHOW' TO END.

Byline: Suzanne Daley The New York Times

They had an unerring sense of the photo opportunity.

Whether South Africa was celebrating a new Constitution or a world rugby victory, F.W. de Klerk and Nelson Mandela always seemed to find each other in the crowd. They would walk together, clasping hands, offering the world that warm and fuzzy picture of black and white leaders at work together.

But behind the scenes they don't like each other very much. There have been shouting matches - one of them overheard in a parking lot - and potshots taken in statements to the press.

Still, the fears that were at work when Mandela's African National Congress and de Klerk's National Party negotiated a deal to govern together for five years have faded more rapidly than anyone expected.

While the country still faces enormous problems, most whites do not seem so anxious to flee. Afrikaner military and police officers who served the apartheid government are doing their jobs like professionals, not plotting coups. Businesses are trying to make affirmative action work and to find a way to serve big pieces of the economic pie to black shareholders. And blacks have not sought revenge.

The world may have been taken in by the pictures. But South Africans knew the political marriage of Mandela and de Klerk had become a show.

So when de Klerk announced Thursday that the National Party would withdraw from Mandela's coalition government, it caused a brief flurry and then a sort of collective shrug, the kind of ``well, it's all for the best'' reaction that might greet any failed relationship. Several newspaper editorials praised the split.

``In many ways, it makes no difference at all,'' said Steve Friedman, the director of the Center for Policy Studies, a Johannesburg research organization. ``It only formalized what had happened anyhow. The National Party was finally getting around to saying that they didn't have that much influence. They had tried to say they did for a long time, but they didn't.''

Beyond simply soothing white fears, the coalition government was formed with the idea that the National Party's presence would bring South Africa's young democracy support from two important sectors: big business and the military. But it did not take long for the generals to decide they wanted to work for the main party in power, and business executives soon bypassed the National Party to form their own ties to the ANC.

Mining industry executives, for instance, were reported to be extremely angry that the cabinet minister overseeing their sector was a National Party official. The industry wanted someone with ``clout,'' as one executive put it.

After surveying a number of business groups, Friedman said, it is clear to him that none of them are remotely worried about the National Party's departure.

``They have other concerns, the kind that businesses have,'' he said. ``There was no sign of alarm because they don't have the National Party anymore.''

But the division could set off some short-term problems for South Africa. It could have a negative effect on the way foreigners view the country, and on the value of the rand, which has declined since de Klerk's announcement.

The timing of the split - the day after Parliament overwhelmingly adopted a new Constitution - could also detract from the way in which the new law of the land is viewed, particularly among whites.

And the departure of the National Party could heighten tensions between the ANC and the third member in the coalition, the Zulu-based Inkatha Freedom Party, which may try to expand its role, further straining its already difficult relationship with Mandela's party.

But many experts said that the coalition had served its purpose and that it was time for the country to have an opposition party.

``Everybody has gotten used to the ANC,'' said Tom Lodge, a professor of political science at the University of the Witwatersrand, in Johannesburg. ``It just doesn't look like an ogre anymore.''

The National Party, however, now faces the difficult task of finding a place for itself in the new order. When it leaves the government on June 30, it will be the first time in 48 years that it has not been part of the government.

The last two years have left the party in some disarray. Wide disagreement about what course to set for the future seemed particularly evident in recent days.

With much fanfare, de Klerk announced in February that he wanted to remake the party to promote ``core values'' and to appeal to both blacks and whites. But in the final weeks of negotiations over the Constitution, he was locked in a very public battle over whether the document should establish the right to single-language schools - a measure that most blacks saw as an attempt by Afrikaans-speakers to keep blacks out of white schools.

De Klerk says he will build the National Party back into the country's largest party. But this is an unlikely scenario.

``They carry a lot of baggage,'' said Friedman. ``This is the party that implemented apartheid, and blacks won't forget that for a long time.''

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Photo: Nelson Mandela, left, and Deputy President F.W. de K lerk meet following the approval of South Africa's Constitution.

Associated Press