27 April 1994: The Day Nearly Twenty Million South Africans Voted, Most for the First Time

South Africa’s transition to democracy formally began in 1990, when the government unbanned liberation movements including the African National Congress (ANC), and accelerated through a four-year negotiation period. Under the interim constitution endorsed in November 1993, national elections were set for 27 April 1994 — giving South Africa’s Independent Electoral Commission (IEC), established in December 1993, roughly four months to build a national electoral infrastructure from nothing.

An Election Administrator Called It An “Impossible Mission”

Mandla Mchunu, the IEC’s first deputy secretary of the adjudication secretariat, later described the task as building an aircraft while flying it. Nineteen political parties registered to contest the vote, and a Commonwealth Observer Group led by former Jamaican Prime Minister Michael Manley, monitored the process.

Voting took place over 26–29 April 1994. Nearly 20 million South Africans cast ballots, most of them for the first time in their lives, forming lines that in some areas stretched for hours. The ANC, under Nelson Mandela, won 62.65% of the vote; F.W. de Klerk’s National Party took 20.39%.

A Day Now Written Into The National Calendar

27 April is now observed annually as Freedom Day, commemorating the first democratic election, which marked the end of apartheid rule — the system of racial segregation that had governed South Africa since 1948, and colonial-era discrimination stretching back more than three centuries before that. As the election’s 30th anniversary coverage in 2024 noted, the vote ended a political system, but the deeper work of addressing land inequality, unemployment and racial economic disparity remained — and remains — a separate, longer project than the transition of political power itself.

Key Insights

• South Africa’s first fully democratic election was held over 26–29 April 1994, organised in roughly four months.
• Nearly 20 million South Africans voted, most for the first time in a national election.
• The ANC under Nelson Mandela won 62.65% of the vote; the National Party under F.W. de Klerk took 20.39%.
• 27 April is now commemorated annually in South Africa as Freedom Day.