The First All Race Elections Held In South Africa
The first all race elections were held beginning April 26, 1994 in South Africa for three days. Millions stood patiently in lines often for hours over the voting period. This election led to South Africa’s first Black President, Nelson Mandela. Mandela’s African National Congress garnered 62,65% or 12,237,655 of the 19,726,579 votes resulting in Mandela’s election and 252 seats won by the ANC. The election concluded a four year process that put an end to apartheid. April 27 is now known as “Freedom Day” a public holiday in South Africa.
![By Paul Weinberg (direct donation from Author) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) or GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)], via Wikimedia Commons Mandela voting in 1994](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/73/Mandela_voting_in_1994.jpg/256px-Mandela_voting_in_1994.jpg)