“I set the alarm early to witness the first multi-racial election to be held in South Africa, the election that brought Nelson Mandela to power,” remembers Ian Berry, recalling the events of April 27, 1994. “I was expecting there to be some excitement because this was the first time that so-called non-whites had ever been allowed to vote. So before dawn I drove to a Western Transvaal Dorp (small town), expecting to find people arriving at the voting booths in ones and twos. Instead there were already thousands, full of anticipation, queuing out of sight in neat, quiet lines.”

Universal adult suffrage on a non-racial basis, the right for all citizens to vote regardless of skin color, was introduced during the negotiations to end apartheid, the segregationist policy that governed the relations between South Africa’s non-white majority and white minority. The apartheid system was terminated following a series of negotiations which took place throughout the early 1990s. They resulted in South Africa’s first non-racial election on April 27, 1994, won by the African National Congress (by 62.6%) and leading Nelson Mandela to his presidency. The turnout was huge: of 22.7 million eligible voters, 19.7 million voted, representing a voter turnout of 86.7%.