African National Congress

In 1990 the government lifted its ban on the ANC and other black African organizations. In that same year Mandela was released from more than 27 years in prison as the recognized leader of the ANC. No longer forced to work underground, the ANC evolved into a political party seeking power through the ballot.

In 1993 the ANC and the government agreed to a plan that would form a transitional government to rule for five years after the country’s first all-race elections scheduled for April 1994. In the months before the election, violence erupted between the ANC and supporters of the Inkatha Freedom Party, the Zulu nationalist movement. Nevertheless, from April 27 to 30, 1994, millions of South Africans of all races participated in the country’s first democratic elections. On May 2, after the ANC’s victory, President F. W. de Klerk conceded the presidency to Mandela, who promised a new, multiracial government for South Africa.

Once in power, the ANC pursued policies to establish a fully multiracial South Africa, within constraints dictated by free-market economic policies and the need to retain the loyalty of white South Africans. Within the government of national unity the party suffered from a deterioration in its relations with Inkatha, led by Mangosuthu Gatsha Buthelezi, and with the National Party of de Klerk. Inkatha and the National Party left the government in 1995 and 1996, respectively.

In late 1997 the aging Mandela, who had announced that he would not be seeking another term as president, formally stepped down as head of the ANC. The party’s convention chose ANC veteran leader Thabo Mbeki as the new party president. In June 1999 elections the ANC won close to two-thirds of the seats in the legislature and selected Mbeki as South Africa’s second black president. Despite the country’s high levels of crime and unemployment, the ANC retained its dominance in 2004 elections, winning almost 70 percent of the seats in the legislature. At a tumultuous party convention in 2007, Jacob Zuma, a former deputy president of South Africa, defeated Mbeki to be elected leader of the ANC.