South African General Election 1994: The First Democratic Vote

The South African general election of 1994, held from 26 to 29 April, was the first in the country’s history in which citizens of all races could vote. Millions of black South Africans queued for hours to cast their first ballots, and the African National Congress (ANC) won a large majority. On 10 May 1994 Nelson Mandela was inaugurated as president, marking the formal end of apartheid and the birth of a new democracy.

Background

Under apartheid, the system of racial segregation introduced after 1948, black South Africans, the large majority of the population, had no vote in national elections. Coloured and Indian South Africans were given limited representation in separate chambers in 1984, a reform widely rejected as a sham. Resistance, from the Soweto uprising of 1976 to the township revolts of the 1980s, combined with sanctions and economic decline to push the government towards change.

After the release of Nelson Mandela in February 1990 and the unbanning of the ANC and other movements, the government of F. W. de Klerk and the liberation movements began to negotiate. The Convention for a Democratic South Africa (CODESA) opened in December 1991 but broke down in 1992 after violence, including the Boipatong massacre. Talks resumed in the Multi-Party Negotiating Process in 1993.

A difficult road to the polls

The transition took place against a background of political violence that killed thousands of people between 1990 and 1994. Much of it involved clashes between ANC supporters and the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) in KwaZulu-Natal and around Johannesburg. On 10 April 1993 Chris Hani, leader of the South African Communist Party and one of the ANC’s most popular figures, was assassinated by a right-wing gunman. Mandela’s televised appeal for calm helped prevent wider unrest, and negotiators soon fixed the election date of 27 April 1994.

An Interim Constitution was agreed in late 1993. It provided for a 400-member National Assembly elected by proportional representation, nine new provinces replacing the old provinces and the nominally independent “homelands”, a Bill of Rights, and a Government of National Unity in which any party with at least 20% of the vote could name a deputy president, and parties with at least 5% were entitled to cabinet posts.

Some groups threatened to boycott or disrupt the vote. In March 1994 the homeland government of Bophuthatswana, whose leader Lucas Mangope refused to take part in the election, collapsed amid strikes and unrest. Armed white right-wingers, including members of the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging (AWB), drove into the territory to support him but were forced out, and the television images of three AWB men being shot dead discredited the armed right. General Constand Viljoen, a former head of the defence force, had registered his new Freedom Front to contest the election only days earlier, and after the debacle he broke decisively with the extremists, drawing many conservative Afrikaners into the democratic process. Later that month, on 28 March, a march by IFP supporters in central Johannesburg ended in deadly shooting, including outside the ANC’s headquarters at Shell House, deepening fears for the election. The IFP, led by Mangosuthu Buthelezi, refused to take part until 19 April, just a week before polling, when it agreed to join in return for guarantees on the status of the Zulu monarchy. Its name had to be added to millions of already printed ballot papers with stickers. In the days before the election, bombs planted by right-wing extremists killed about 20 people.

Voting

The Independent Electoral Commission (IEC), chaired by Judge Johann Kriegler, organised the election in only a few months. There was no voters’ roll: any citizen aged 18 or over with an identity document or temporary voter card could vote at any polling station. Special votes were cast on 26 April by the elderly, people with disabilities, members of the security forces and South Africans abroad. The main polling days were 27 and 28 April, and voting was extended to 29 April in parts of the former homelands where ballot papers and equipment had run short.

The images of the election became famous: long, patient queues winding across fields and around city blocks, elderly voters who had waited all their lives for the chance, and an atmosphere of calm after years of fear. Nelson Mandela cast his vote on 27 April at Ohlange High School in Inanda, near Durban, close to the grave of John Dube, the ANC’s first president. The bombing campaign stopped, and polling days were among the most peaceful South Africa had seen in years.

Organisation was nonetheless strained. Some polling stations opened hours late or ran out of ballot papers, ink or voting materials, and an extra day of voting had to be added in some areas so that everyone could vote. Thousands of international observers, including missions from the United Nations, the Commonwealth, the European Union and the Organisation of African Unity, monitored the poll alongside South African volunteers. Voters marked two separate ballots, one for the National Assembly and one for their provincial legislature, and could choose different parties on each.

Results

Counting was slow and marred by disputes and irregularities, especially in KwaZulu-Natal. On 6 May the IEC declared the election substantially free and fair. The ANC won a clear majority but fell short of the two-thirds needed to write the final constitution alone.

In simultaneous provincial elections, the ANC won seven of the nine provinces. The National Party won the Western Cape, and the IFP won KwaZulu-Natal. About 19.7 million votes were cast nationally.

Mandela’s inauguration

On 9 May 1994 the National Assembly elected Nelson Mandela president. The next day he was inaugurated at the Union Buildings in Pretoria before a crowd of tens of thousands and heads of state, royalty and delegations from more than 100 countries, while South African Air Force jets flew overhead trailing the colours of the new national flag. Thabo Mbeki of the ANC and F. W. de Klerk of the National Party became deputy presidents. In his inaugural speech Mandela declared, “Never, never and never again shall it be that this beautiful land will again experience the oppression of one by another.”

Key people

• Nelson Mandela – ANC president, elected South Africa’s first black head of state.
• F. W. de Klerk – Last apartheid-era president, who became a deputy president in the new government.
• Mangosuthu Buthelezi – IFP leader, whose last-minute participation averted a boycott; he became Minister of Home Affairs.
• Thabo Mbeki – ANC leader and first deputy president; Mandela’s successor in 1999.
• Johann Kriegler – Judge who chaired the Independent Electoral Commission.

Myths and facts

Myth: the election was the end of a peaceful, smooth transition. The negotiated transition is often remembered as a miracle, but thousands died in political violence between 1990 and 1994, and the country came close to civil conflict several times.

Myth: the ANC won the power to rewrite the constitution alone. The ANC’s 62.65% fell short of the two-thirds majority needed. The final Constitution, adopted in 1996, was negotiated between the parties in the Constitutional Assembly and certified by the new Constitutional Court.

Timeline

• 1990, 2 February: De Klerk unbans the ANC and other liberation movements.
• 1991, 20 December: CODESA negotiations open.
• 1993, 10 April: Chris Hani is assassinated.
• 1993, 18 November: Negotiators approve the Interim Constitution.
• 1994, 19 April: The IFP agrees to take part in the election.
• 1994, 26 April: Special voting begins.
• 1994, 27-28 April: Main polling days; voting extended to 29 April in some areas.
• 1994, 6 May: The IEC declares the election substantially free and fair.
• 1994, 10 May: Nelson Mandela is inaugurated as president in Pretoria.

Consequences and legacy

South Africa was quickly readmitted to the international community: it rejoined the Commonwealth and resumed its seat in the UN General Assembly in 1994. The new government set up the Truth and Reconciliation Commission to examine apartheid-era abuses, and the final Constitution, with one of the world’s most extensive bills of rights, was signed into law in December 1996. Since 1994, 27 April has been celebrated as Freedom Day.

The Government of National Unity brought former enemies into the same cabinet, with Buthelezi as Minister of Home Affairs. The new government launched the Reconstruction and Development Programme to extend housing, electricity, water and health services to black communities neglected under apartheid. The National Party withdrew from the coalition in 1996, after the final Constitution was adopted, and the ANC went on to win the next election in 1999, when Thabo Mbeki succeeded Mandela, who chose to serve only a single term.

The election did not end deep inequalities in wealth, land and opportunity, which remain central political issues. But it established regular, contested elections and peaceful transfers of power under a constitution that has endured.

Why it matters

The 1994 election turned a state built on racial exclusion into a democracy with equal voting rights for all. It is one of the most celebrated democratic transitions of the twentieth century and remains a reference point for negotiated settlements to deep conflicts.