Following Jacob Zuma’s tenure, during which corruption became endemic, tarnishing the ANC, Cyril Ramaphosa was touted as the party’s saviour. But he failed to impress.
African National Congress supporters in Durban days before the historic poll on 27 April 1994.
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The electoral commission had only four months for work which normally takes two to three years. In the end, the election succeeded because the nation wanted it to succeed.
Buthelezi should not be dismissed as a mere stooge during apartheid. Yet, he deserves little praise as an advocate for human rights and civil liberties.
Nelson and Winnie Mandela, a day after he was released from prison in
1990.
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The early Nelson comes across as a man consumed by insecurity and ambition, plagued by inner strife and anger.
Nelson Mandela, the late first president of democratic South Africa, is credited with the relatively peaceful transition from apartheid rule.
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There is never going to be a final assessment of Mandela’s legacy. How it is regarded will continue to change, depending on the destination South Africa travels to.
Hundreds of people stand in line to vote in South Africa’s first democratic election in April 1994.
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The proportional representation system has long outlived its relevance. Its negative extremes abound in local government.
Chris Hani (R) after being elected secretary general of the South African Communist Party in December 1991. To his left is the former secretary general Jo Slovo.
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A historian counters the popular view that the 1989 collapse of the Berlin Wall set in motion talks to end apartheid. The process was unstoppable by then.
Loyalists of the ANC’s Radical Economic Transformation (RET) at the Olive Convention Centre in Durban.
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Despite its vagueness, the RET has become central to the contemporary ANC. It is destined to remain a powerful bloc within the party, and a constant constraint on Ramaphosa leadership.
Russia’s indiscriminate war in Ukraine has caused a large-scale humanitarian crisis.
EFE-EPA/Sergey Dolzhenko
The rule of law embodies the rallying cry for the fair and democratic exercise of public power, buttressed by law and fundamental rights.
Inkatha leader Mangosuthu Buthelezi, former South African President FW de Klerk and Nelson Mandela after signing a peace pledge ahead of the first democratic elections in 1994.
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This history covers twelve decades, from the surrender of Boer guerrillas in the Second Anglo-Boer War in 1902 to the July 2021 looting spree and violence.
Former South African President FW de Klerk photographed in Pretoria in 1989.
EPA-EFE/Walter Dlhadlha (AFP/via Getty Images), via
The new governing elite mistakenly believes that the goal of a democratic South Africa is simply to extend to everyone what whites enjoyed under apartheid.
Nelson Mandela at the commemoration of the 1960 Sharpeville massacre in 1994.
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The suggestion that Mandela single-handedly achieved democracy is as intellectually threadbare as the charge that he was centrally responsible for the failure to transform South Africa.
South Africa’s Constitutional Court is considered the bedrock of the country’s democratic order. Here it is in session in 2019.
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