S. Africa: Big Win For ANC
Outgoing President Nelson MandelaÂ's African National Congress on Wednesday won a decisive victory in South Africa's first election since the apartheid-ending vote of 1994. According to returns still being tabulated, the ANC won more than two thirds of the vote, a tally that would allow the party to rewrite South AfricaÂ's constitution.
The South African Broadcasting Corp. projected a two-thirds ANC majority in Wednesday's second all-race election as provisional results showed the party with 64.1 percent of 9.3 million votes counted, representing about 60 percent of ballots cast.
Mandela, who will turn over the presidency to hand-picked successor Thabo Mbeki on June 16, saw his two election day wishes come true – the ANC victory and largely peaceful voting, which was a departure from widespread violence in the 1994 poll.
The voting, which stretched from Wednesday into early Thursday because of long lines at many polling stations, proceeded harmoniously across a nation still scarred by apartheid.
The largely white New National Party, which ruled for 46 years of the apartheid era, was in danger of losing its status as the largest opposition party with only 9 percent of the votes.
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Running second behind the ANC with 11 percent was the Democratic Party, founded as an anti-apartheid movement in the 1980s but increasingly popular among many whites now because of its shift to an anti-crime, anti-ANC stance.
In fourth place, with 8 percent, was the Zulu-nationalist Inkatha Freedom Party. An array of smaller parties trailed well behind.
Complete results were not expected until late Thurday at the earliest. Officials estimated that 85 percent of the 18.2 million registered voters cast ballots, just under the 87 percent turnout in the historic 1994 election.
Once again, the biggest winner was South African democracy itself. Voters turned out in huge numbers, waiting in line sometimes for six or seven hours, yet only minor disturbances were reported, even in areas that five years ago were wracked by violence.
Â"The kind of peace and stability that we've managed to get right through the day has been monumental,Â" said Smuts Ngonyama, an ANC official.
Mandela, who spent 27 years as a prisoner of the white-minority regime during the apartheid era, has devoted his five-year presidency to promoting racial reconciliation.
Mbeki, who as deputy president has been running day-to-day government affairs for the past two years, is respected for his skills, but does not enjoy the same level of affection as Mandela.
After his expected election as president by the Parliament and inauguration ceremonies on June 16, Mbeki will immediately face pressure to improve living standards for blacks.
Mbeki, 56, inherits a diverse, complicated nation that remains divided between wealthy whites and poor blacks, with Indian and mixed-race minorities groping to find their niche.
The country is beset by rampant crime and a crumbling education system, with black unemployment at 42 percent and a spreading AIDS epidemic that has infected at least 3.6 million people with HIV.
CBS News Senior European Correspondent Tom Fenton reports that Mandela, who says he is planning to retire to his native Transkei after the election, pledged on his inauguration in 1994 "to build a society in which all South Africans will be able to walk tall, assured of their inalienable right to human dignity, a rainbow nation at peace with itself and with the world."
Now 80, and in frail health, he can take credit for accomplishing at least part of that promise.
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