There is parallels to how communism in ended in Russia and how Apartheid ended in South Africa. To put it plainly South Africa was broke. Very few countries where willing to do business with them. They simple could not have continued on with these massive trade embargoes in effect.
They simply had to do something to revive the economy. FW De Klerk knew this and the only way he could foresee the prevention of this decline was accepting Democracy.
falling GDP, either in an absolute way, or compared to other countries
in the region
This is simply not true. For a good long time in the early noughties SA's Economy was growing by 3 - 5%. Which had never happened before. They took a knock when the recession came but still not as bleak as some other countries in the world.
significantly increasing crime rates.
Take this article for instance from the Mail & Guardian
While many believe Jo'burg is the most dangerous city to live in, in
SA, the reality is very different. Lizette Lancaster explains why.
While murder is often used as the main indicator to support arguments
that South Africa is a violent country, it makes up only 2.5% of all
violent crime. (Madelene Cronje, M&G)
Despite a lot of people thinking that Johannesburg is the most
dangerous metropolitan city to live in, in South Africa, the reality
is quite different. Consider that between April 2011 and March 2012,
police recorded more murders in Cape Town than in Johannesburg and
Pretoria combined. This means that taking population into account,
Cape Town residents are almost twice (1.8 times) more likely to be
murdered than Johannesburg residents.
Yet this information is potentially misleading because the likelihood
of being a victim of crime depends in large part on race, gender, age,
economic profile and whereabouts in a city a person lives. For
example, almost two-thirds of the Cape Town murders took place in just
10 of the 60 police station precincts in the city, according to an
analysis of crime hotspots we carried out at the Institute for
Security Studies (ISS).
For years, Mitchell's Plain experienced the highest violence and
property crime rates in the country. With the recent surge in gang
violence, Mitchell's Plain and surrounding areas clearly require
in-depth multi-disciplinary intervention. The Cape Town residential
areas of Nyanga, Khayelitsha, Gugulethu and Harare remain the most
murderous in the peninsula, according to an analysis which takes
population size into account. These areas have experienced abnormally
high murder rates for more than a decade.
Low-income areas most affected Similarly, countrywide analysis of
police precinct statistics suggests that income levels matter.
Residents in low-income areas, the analysis shows, are far more likely
to be murdered than their middle and high-income counterparts. Half of
South Africa's murders occur in only 13% or 143 out of 1 127 of police
precincts.
A vast majority of the average of 43 murders that take place daily do
not make the news. They happen in areas where crime and violence are
part of the daily despair of residents who already feel marginalised
and forgotten by media and politicians. The majority of murders are
not premeditated or committed as part of a crime, like a robbery, but
occur when an argument leads to physical assault.
Research shows that most victims are killed by acquaintances, friends
or family members during disputes overwhelmingly fuelled by alcohol
and in some occasions, drug abuse. Victimisation surveys, police
docket surveys and mortuary surveillance studies reveal that the most
victims of murder in South Africa are young black men. And studies
reveal that most murdered women are killed by their intimate partners.
And that men are six times more likely to be killed than women.
People tend to focus on our national murder rate, which is four and a
half times higher than the global average of 6.9 per 100 000 people.
Yet, some 13% of police precincts in South Africa have murder rates
below this rate. These areas include affluent ones such as Brooklyn
(Pretoria), Garsfontein (Pretoria), Camps Bay, Claremont, Rondebosch
(Cape Town), Edenvale and Linden (Gauteng). Meanwhile, residents of
suburbs like Sandton, Parkview (Johannesburg), Durban North, Table
View and Woodstock (Cape Town) and others have a murder rate of fewer
than 10 per 100 000.
Over 10% of our policing precincts – more than 115 stations – have a
zero murder rate. Three in four murders occur in just a quarter of
the country's police station areas.
While murder is often used as the main indicator to support arguments
that South Africa is a violent country, it makes up only 2.5% of all
violent crime. While there were 15 609 murders last year, a total of
607 877 other violent crimes including attempted murder, rape, robbery
and assault were also reported to the police. When violent crime
hotspots are analysed, central business districts remain the most
high-risk areas in terms of violence in general, and specifically for
robberies. The clear front-runner is Johannesburg Central, followed by
Durban Central, Pietermaritzburg, Cape Town Central and Pretoria
Central. These areas also experience very high property crime rates.
http://mg.co.za/article/2013-09-19-where-murder-happens-in-south-africa
It seems that you cannot make generalizations when it comes to crime in SA. Their are place that are crime ridden and others where you can live in peace. As it is in most places in the world poverty plays a central role.
increasing poverty rates
This may not be true as Government grants and unemployment insurance tries to rectify it. Also the black middle class is very much real and that is something that did not exist in 94.
For a developing country South Africa has a well-established social
welfare system and a large proportion of social spending goes towards
social grants. According to Minister of Finance Pravin Gordhan's
budget speech "substantial growth in social spending over the past
decade has financed a threefold increase in the number of people
receiving social grants" and over 15 million people in South Africa
now receive cash transfers from the state. Since the gradual extension
of the Child Support Grant to children up to the age of 18, spending
on social assistance has increased an average of 11% per year and will
increase to R120 billion in the 2014/15 financial year.
http://groundup.org.za/content/everything-you-need-know-about-social-grants
