1994 - The African Mirror

Jul

19

2024

Mandela Day lesson to partners in the government of national unity

THOUGHT LEADERSHIP

WE are all witnesses of a seismic shift in the South African landscape. Thirty years after liberation, the voters have rejected the ANC as the majority voice of society and forced it onto a government of national unity with a number of other parties, notably the Democratic Alliance and the Inkatha Freedom Party. As a member of the governing party, we have to admit that, three decades after 1994, we have not achieved our goal of a better life for all. We are not safe, people are hungry and cold, our infrastructure is deteriorating, and we are suffering from terminal…

May

01

2024

By THABO MBEKI

Observations by Thabo Mbeki to mark the 30th Anniversary of South Africa’s Democracy

THOUGHT LEADERSHIP, EDITORS CHOICE

THIS year I celebrate 68 years of membership of the ANC, having joined the ANC Youth League as a 13½-year-old in 1956. You can therefore imagine what a difference it would make to me and others of my generation if the South Africa of today looked like the South Africa for which many sacrificed in many ways, including by losing their lives. The ANC held a victory party at the Carlton Hotel in Johannesburg as soon as the results of our very first democratic elections of 1994 were announced. I happened to serve as the Master of Ceremonies that joyful…

Apr

20

2024

By MARK SWILLING

South Africa’s electricity crisis: a series of failures over 30 years have left a dim legacy

SPECIAL FEATURES: ANALYSIS

IN 1994, apartheid ended and the African National Congress (ANC) won South Africa’s first-ever democratic elections, promising “Electricity for All” as part of its Reconstruction and Development Programme. Back then only 36% of all South Africans had electricity in their homes. The development programme promised to double that number by electrifying an additional 2.5 million homes by 2000. This seemed achievable – during the 1980s, the state-owned power utility Eskom’s build programme was so aggressive it had surplus electricity. Some power stations even had to be mothballed. By 1994, South Africa’s coal industry was generating high-quality coal which was exported…

Apr

19

2024

By JAMES OATWAY and THANDO HLOPHE

Man named Vote will cast ballot for change in South Africa

NEWS

WHEN Mariana Ubisi went into labour in her one-room home in rural South Africa, millions of Black citizens were queuing to vote in the election that would bring Nelson Mandela to power. It was April 27, 1994. Swept up in the excitement, Ubisi and her husband named their newborn son Vote. "I imagine it was because we were hearing the chants saying 'vote, vote, vote' on the radio," said Ubisi, a traditional healer in Lillydale, a poor village in Mpumalanga province. As Mozambican refugees who fled war in their country in the 1960s, Mariana and her husband Ernesto did not…