Polls apart: South Africa’s progress

Twenty years ago today South Africa was at the dawn of a new democracy. Decades of the worst oppression were about to come to an end. As Nelson Mandela put it: "For the first time in the history of our country, all South Africans, whatever their language, religion, culture, whatever their colour or class, will vote as equal citizens. Millions who were not allowed to vote will do so. I, too, for the first time in my short life, will vote."

April 26th, 1994, was the first of three days of voting. As part of the African National Congress election team in Stellenbosch, outside Cape Town, I was woken that morning at 4.50 by a call.

A voice shouted at me to get down to the township immediately. Before I could ask what was happening he hung up. Bombs planted by the far-right anti-democracy movements had been exploding over the previous few days, and I feared the worst.

I jumped into my car and sped through the dark streets. As I crossed the bridge into the township I saw lines and lines of people, barely visible in the dark and the rain. Still fearing the worst, I drove cautiously closer.

But as the people became more visible in the dark I realised that something totally different was happening. The lines were stretching for miles. People were standing in absolute silence, in the darkness and rain, waiting.

Old people were sitting on oil drums; any who could not walk were pushed in wheelbarrows. Babies were tied to women’s backs, with plastic shopping bags made into little hats to keep their heads dry. Even sleepy teenagers were up to see what was going on. They were all there, in line at just after 5am, waiting to vote.

We went up and down the lines, explaining that polling booths would not open for hours and that everyone had three days to vote, encouraging them to go home until later. Time and again they told us to go away, and they didn’t move, clearly determined not to miss their first opportunity to vote.

This was to be the beginning of an extremely emotional few days. All over South Africa mile-long queues formed outside polling stations. People waited for hours, some even sleeping outside overnight.

Madams and maids waited in line together, sharing food and drink, all watched over jointly by MK (the former military wing of the ANC) and South African defence-force soldiers. A few short years earlier they had been fighting bitter military battles against each other. Now they were jointly guarding the birth of a new country.

It was hard to imagine what it must have felt like for those who had fought so hard, and sacrificed so much, to vote for the first time. When asked how he felt, an emotional Archbishop Desmond Tutu said: “It is like being asked to describe the colour red to someone born blind – impossible!”

Emotional stories were reaching us from all over the country. In the Eastern Cape a very frail elderly gentleman was wheeled by his grandson into the polling station in a wheelbarrow. He could not read or write, so he was helped by the independent election monitors. He smiled broadly as they marked his finger with indelible ink.

As they left he suddenly collapsed and died. His final act was to vote. His family believed that he had hung on so that he could fulfil his lifelong dream of voting.

Of course these were also very emotional, cathartic days for the white population. Tutu said that the whites entered the voting booth as oppressors but exited it free of those shackles. Four days after the last day of voting Nelson Mandela announced the preliminary results and the country erupted with joy. Another week later the man who spent 27 years in jail for his commitment to secure these elections became our president.

Peaceful settlement
On a cold sunny day in Pretoria the world's leaders and celebrities came together to honour him and the incredible human spirit of the people of South Africa who sacrificed so much and yet came to a peaceful settlement.

As a newly elected member of parliament I joined my colleagues as we watched a group of fighter jets approach the amphitheatre. As they got close they sharply descended. The pilots were all young white men from the army who were taught for years to hate Mandela and the ANC. As they passed over us they slowed down and from their cockpits saluted Mandela, their new commander in chief.

On the day Mandela, as always, showed his true character. He not only recognised FW de Klerk, the former president, but also said in Afrikaans, " Wat verby is is verby !" – "What is passed is passed!"

One of his former bodyguards, Rory Steyn, recently told me how Madiba, at one of the celebrations on the day, broke through his security cordon and approached a white soldier.

“The colonel, in full uniform, was confused, and his eyes grew larger and larger as Madiba walked directly towards him,” said Steyn. “This was a real old colonel, as we knew them in 1994. He was Afrikaans, in his mid 50s, white, lots of miles on the dial, and had a lined face that had certainly been there and seen it all.

“Surrounded by about 10 VIP protectors, Madiba put out his hand and said, ‘Colonel, I just want you to know that today you have become our police. I am now the president of South Africa, but I just want you to know that there is no more ‘you’ and ‘us’ and, from today, you are our police.’

“The hardened veteran started quietly crying, and the tears ran down his lined face and dripped on to the polished parquet floor. Madiba just patted his shoulder and said, ‘It’s okay, colonel, I just wanted to tell you that,’ and then walked back to his car.”

Of course, 20 years later, Madiba is sadly no longer with us. South Africa has come a long way since those emotional days of 1994. The “born-frees” – babies born after 1994 – are now adults and find it almost impossible to believe there was a time, only two decades ago, when it was illegal for whites and blacks to socialise, marry, share beaches or toilets, or go to school together. They are part of a vibrant new generation, wanting a good life.

Sadly that is still not possible for the vast majority of South Africa’s population. Despite huge progress on all fronts, millions of South Africans still live in shacks, have a very poor education and suffer the general indignities of extreme poverty.

This has resulted in widespread criticism of, and disillusionment with, in particular, President Jacob Zuma. It is hard to find anyone, apart from hardened party hacks, who has not lost faith in him. Even old ANC stalwarts have said he should resign after the recent public protector's report criticising him sharply for using 250 million rand of taxpayers' money – more than €17 million – to upgrade his personal residence.

Political analysts have predicted that the ANC majority will fall sharply because of the unpopularity of the president. Yet, surprisingly, opinion polls show the opposite.

The ANC majority seems to be growing irrespective of the disgruntlement with the president. Research now suggests that people are distinguishing between the party and its leader. There is also very little alternative for many people. The Democratic Alliance, which is the main opposition, has been able to put a much more racially integrated image to the electorate than in previous years.

Yet the Democratic Alliance leader, Helen Zille, is a white woman of German extraction who, despite the fact that she speaks Xhosa fluently, remains very white and middle class and so not very convincing in her claims to represent African working-class shack-dwellers.

Julius Malema, who was expelled from the ANC, will gain some votes from young radicals, provided he was able to get them to register to vote. But he is unlikely to win more than a few seats in the national assembly.

Mamphela Ramphele, the former vice-chancellor of the University of Cape Town and partner of Steve Biko, for a short while seemed to pose an interesting alternative to left-wing voters who were comfortable with neither the ANC nor the Democratic Alliance. But after a disastrous and highly embarrassing attempt to amalgamate her party with the Democratic Alliance, she is unlikely to make any impact in the elections.

So it seems that the ANC will again gain a large majority and govern for another five years. It will be five years of increasing challenges for the governing party to meet the huge demands for basic service delivery while growing the economy and staying competitive in a global market.

Yet, despite all the challenges facing the country, South Africa remains one of the biggest success stories of racial integration, peaceful transition and economic stability not only in the developing world but also anywhere else on the globe.

I have no doubt that were Mandela still with us, and were he asked to reflect on the past 20 years, he would, like many people, express disappointment with the many things that have gone wrong. Yet I also think that he would be proud of the legacy he has left behind: a rainbow nation determined to succeed.

Melanie Verwoerd was South African ambassador to Ireland from 2001 to 2005