People queue to vote in Soweto, South Africa, April 27, 1994, in the country’s first multiracial elections. South Africans celebrate “Freedom Day” every April 27.
Denis Farrell/AP
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People queue to vote in Soweto, South Africa, April 27, 1994, in the country’s first multiracial elections. South Africans celebrate “Freedom Day” every April 27.
Denis Farrell/AP
CAPE TOWN, South Africa — South Africans celebrate “Freedom Day” every April 27, when they remember their country’s crucial first democratic election in 1994, which heralded the official end of racial segregation and the oppression of apartheid.
Saturday marks the 30th anniversary of that momentous vote, in which millions of black South Africans, young and old, decided for the first time about their own future, a fundamental right denied them by a white minority government.
The first multiracial election saw the previously banned African National Congress party win overwhelmingly and made its leader, Nelson Mandela, the country’s first black president, four years after his release from prison.
Here’s what you need to know about this iconic moment and a South Africa that’s still changing 30 years later:
A turning point
The 1994 elections were the culmination of a process that began four years earlier when FW de Klerk, the last president of the apartheid era, shocked the world and his country by announcing that the ANC and other anti-apartheid parties would no longer be banned.
Mandela, the face of the anti-apartheid movement, was released from prison nine days later, putting him on track to become South Africa’s first black leader.
Nelson Mandela, then leader of the African National Congress, voted on April 27, 1994 near Durban, South Africa, in the country’s first multiracial elections.
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Nelson Mandela, then leader of the African National Congress, voted on April 27, 1994 near Durban, South Africa, in the country’s first multiracial elections.
John Parkin/AP
South Africa needed years to prepare and was still on a knife’s edge in the months and weeks leading up to the elections due to persistent political violence, but the vote – which took place over four days between April 26 and 29 to accommodate the large number of participants – took place successfully.
A country that had been shunned and sanctioned by the international community for decades due to apartheid has become a full-fledged democracy.
Hero
Nearly 20 million South Africans of all races voted, compared to just 3 million whites in the last general election under apartheid in 1989.
Associated Press photographer Denis Farrell’s iconic aerial photograph of people waiting patiently for hours in long, snaking queues in fields next to a school in Johannesburg’s famous Soweto township captured the determination millions of black South Africans to finally be counted. It was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize.
“South Africa’s heroes are a legend across generations,” Mandela said in proclaiming victory. “But it is you, the people, who are our true heroes.”
Apartheid falls
The ANC’s electoral victory enabled the definitive dismantling of apartheid and the development of a new Constitution which became the highest law in South Africa, guaranteeing the equality of all, regardless of their background. race, religion or sexuality.
Apartheid, which began in 1948 and lasted for nearly half a century, oppressed black people and other non-white people through a series of race-based laws. Not only did the laws deny them the right to vote, they controlled where black people lived, where they were allowed to go on a given day, what jobs they were allowed to have, and who they were allowed to marry.
30 years later
Current South African President Cyril Ramaphosa – a Mandela protégé – will lead the 30th anniversary of Freedom Day celebrations at the Union Buildings in Pretoria, the seat of government, on Saturday.
A crowd of people chant and give peace signs during a lunchtime peace march in downtown Johannesburg, South Africa, January 27, 1994, ahead of the country’s all-race elections .
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A crowd of people chant and give peace signs during a lunchtime peace march in downtown Johannesburg, South Africa, January 27, 1994, ahead of the country’s all-race elections .
Denis Farrell/AP
The ANC has been in power since 1994 and, although it is still recognized for its central role in the liberation of South Africans, it is no longer celebrated in the same way as it was in the aftermath of those elections , full of hope.
South Africa is experiencing profound socio-economic problems in 2024, the most shocking being the widespread and severe poverty which still massively affects the black majority. The official unemployment rate is 32%, the highest in the world, while it exceeds 60% for young people aged 15 to 24.
Millions of black South Africans still live in neglected, impoverished townships and informal settlements on the outskirts of cities, which many see as a betrayal of the heroes Mandela referenced. South Africa is still considered one of the most unequal countries in the world.
The ANC is now widely blamed for the lack of progress in improving the lives of so many South Africans, even though the damage caused by decades of apartheid was not going to be easy to repair.
An election poster, with President Cyril Ramaphosa atop a pole in Soweto, South Africa, Monday April 22, 2024.
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An election poster, with President Cyril Ramaphosa atop a pole in Soweto, South Africa, Monday April 22, 2024.
Themba Hadebé/AP
Another pivotal election?
The 30th anniversary of 1994 falls against the backdrop of another potentially pivotal election. South Africa will hold its seventh national poll since the end of apartheid on May 29, with all opinion polls and analysts predicting the ANC will lose its parliamentary majority in yet another step.
The ANC is still expected to be the largest party and will likely need to form complex coalitions with smaller parties to remain in government, but the expected dominant picture is that more South Africans will vote for other parties when national elections. for the first time in their democracy.
South Africans still cherish the memory of Mandela and the elusive freedom and prosperity he spoke of in 1994. But the majority now appear willing to look beyond the ANC to achieve it.
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