ANC Celebrates South African Election Win by The Australian / SBS World News / Reuters 1:11am 14th Apr, 2004   ANC Celebrates South African Election Win    17.4.2004. (SBS World News)    South African President Thabo Mbeki is celebrating his party's landslide victory in the country's third all-race democratic elections. The African National Congress gained almost 70 percent of the vote, and secured control of all but one province. The opposition Democratic Alliance came in second with 12 percent of the vote.    Speaking to a crowd of around 3,000 supporters in Johannesburg, Mr Mbeki called for humility. "It is quite clear that the ANC has got the overwhelming support and confidence of the people of South Africa," he said. "It also, I think, poses a challenge to the ANC not to disappoint the expectations of the millions of people who voted so overwhelmingly for the ANC." The ANC, a former freedom movement that led the anti-apartheid movement, won the two-thirds parliamentary majority needed to make constitutional change.    Johannesburg. April 15, 2004.    "Mandela turns out for victory". (Reuters).    A beaming Nelson Mandela joined millions of South Africans voting in their third multiracial election yesterday and said he was elated with the country's progress since he led it to democracy.    The 85-year-old anti-apartheid hero waved to voters standing in a huge queue at the polling station near his suburban Johannesburg home, once a leafy bastion of white privilege.    "I feel elated that I can be able to assert my right as a citizen and I sincerely hope that the entire world will abandon violence and use peaceful methods of asserting their right as citizens," Mandela said after casting his vote with a flourish.    Mr Mandela's successor, President Thabo Mbeki, looks guaranteed his second term a decade since Mr Mandela led the ANC to victory in democratic polls and became South Africa's first black president. About 17,000 polling stations around the country opened yesterday and electoral officials said they expect turnout to be high among more than 20 million registered voters.    April 13, 2004    Nelson Mandela: "He is our collective conscience.. We worry because we cannot imagine life without him", by Cameron Stewart. (The Australian)    Of all the words written about Nelson Mandela, perhaps it was soccer star David Beckham who – in a tongue-tied moment – said it best when he declared that he was honoured to meet "the world's greatest statement".    At 85, Mandela does not get out as much these days, but as South Africa goes to the polls tomorrow to celebrate a decade of democracy, "the old man", as he is affectionately known, is everywhere. He stares out at you from coffee mugs, drink coasters, office walls and even from boxes of Mandela-shaped chocolates. In the rich white enclave of Sandton in Johannesburg, a 6m bronze statue of Mandela stares down at shoppers in the new Nelson Mandela Square, while in the poor black township of KwaMashu in Durban yesterday thousands of supporters of Mandela's beloved African National Congress sang songs of freedom as they filed past a giant poster of their hero en route to a mass election rally.    "You know what Mandela is?" asks ANC supporter Jabunani Magwazi outside the rally. "He is our godfather – he gives guidance to our younger leaders because they are not well matured," he says, drawing nods of agreement from his friends.    But the frail former freedom fighter turned president has also morphed into a figure who floats above politics in the new South Africa.    It is only five years since he was the country's president and the opposition parties could rightfully lay some of the blame for South Africa's problems at Mandela's feet. But when he campaigned in Durban last week for the ANC, the opposition parties remained conspicuously silent.    "It is political suicide to attack the old man," a senior opposition adviser who asked not to be named told The Australian. "It would be like shooting yourself in both feet at once."    This is a view that appears to go all the way to the White House. When Mandela chastised George W. Bush for his assault on Iraq last year, the White House said nothing, knowing it would never win a public relations war with arguably the world's most popular person.    In a country that is still struggling to heal racial division and economic inequality 10 years after apartheid, the cult of Mandela is South Africa's most potent – and some say its only true – symbol of unity, cutting across all racial and political lines.    In dozens of interviews across the country, from its richest enclaves to its poorest ghettos, The Australian has been unable to elicit a bad word about Mandela, even from those, such as the Zulus, who are often openly hostile to the ruling ANC and incumbent President Thabo Mbeki.    "I don't think there is anyone in South Africa today who doesn't respect Mandela," says Paul Garner, an Anglican lay preacher, as he steers his Land Rover down a dusty backroad in the anti-ANC Zulu heartland of KwaZulu-Natal. "But mention the word Mbeki to your average Zulu and he will spit on the ground before he answers."    Philemon Manama, a musician from Soweto, says: "People will vote for the ANC because they still love Mandela, even though he is not in politics anymore."    What Mandela makes of all the fuss is a mystery. He still walks around with a broad grin, making self-deprecating comments about his talents and his age. But when South Africa's Oscar-winning actor Charlize Theron met Mandela last month, she burst into tears and sobbed: "I love you so much." And when Mandela made an impromptu appearance in his former home Soweto, thousands quickly gathered to watch and cheer him. Former first lady and US senator Hillary Clinton even credits Mandela with having helped save her marriage to cheating husband and former president Bill Clinton.    When Mandela last year celebrated his 85th birthday, the Clintons, including daughter Chelsea, dropped in to South Africa to sing Happy Birthday, along with actor Robert De Niro, U2 frontman Bono, talk-show host Oprah Winfrey, singer-actor Barbra Streisand and supermodel Naomi Campbell.    It is said that Mandela's office received 22,000 text messages and 15,000 phone calls offering birthday wishes from across the world; and, to mark the occasion, the Nelson Mandela Bridge connecting the white and black areas of Johannesburg was dedicated.    The previous Christmas, according to South Africa's Sunday Times newspaper, Mandela played Santa Claus at his home in Qunu in the Eastern Cape, only to find that 20,000 turned up, forcing the defence force to intervene to sort out the chaos.    What's more, his former prison cell at Robben Island and his former home in Soweto are among the country's biggest tourist attractions.    Amid such adulation, it might appear that a normal life is impossible, but Mandela is a creature of routine – a habit perhaps learned during his 27 years of incarceration on Robben Island. He rises at 4.30 each morning and exercises for an hour at 5am, followed at 6.30 by porridge and fruit, which he eats while studying the day's newspapers.    Since 1998 he has been married to Graca Machel, widow of the Mozambique president, and on quiet days he works mostly for his Nelson Mandela Foundation, which he set up in 1999 to promote education and other good works in South Africa. The foundation has funded more than 130 new schools.    But his foundation's website suggests that Mandela's day is frequently interrupted by side issues – like world peace.    "On an average day he will spend time working on ongoing programs and perhaps interrupt his work to respond to a major local or international threat – such as the threat of a US attack on Iraq," the website says. Mandela is probably not joking, then, when he says that "playing with my grandchildren helps me to forget the troubles of the world".    When Mandela stepped down from the presidency in 1999, he said it was "like being out of jail a second time" and that he would devote the rest of his life to pursuing his passions. But, as his former secretary once said, "his retirement is only something written on paper".    In the past five years Mandela has continued to work long hours and travel the world, maintaining a schedule that would exhaust people half his age. Even a brush with prostate cancer in 2001 did not appear to slow him down.    Yasser Arafat has dropped by to seek his support to mediate peace in the Middle East, while the Queen also paid him a private visit while in South Africa. Mandela has worked to bring peace in Burundi and in Northern Ireland, in between singing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star to primary school children.    But despite his warm and cuddly image, Mandela has been more outspoken about some issues than the Government would like.    In 2001, Mandela attacked the culture of "secrecy and denial" surrounding the AIDS crisis in South Africa, which has the highest number of HIV infections anywhere in the world.    Mbeki took offence when Mandela went further and called on the Government to take stronger action against the disease – an implicit criticism of Mbeki, who until recently did not believe that HIV caused AIDS.    While South Africans are happy to embrace Mandela, the same cannot always be said of Mbeki, who is reported to be jealous of the popular affection and attention that Mandela continues to enjoy.    ANC officials have been careful not to let Mandela upstage Mbeki since an incident in 2002, when Mandela walked into the ANC national congress during Mbeki's speech, only to have officials ignore Mbeki and give Mandela a standing ovation.    During this election campaign, Mbeki has appeared only once with Mandela – at a mass ANC rally in Johannesburg a week ago, when Mandela once again received the loudest cheers. After that, Mandela and Mbeki campaigned separately.    However, the ANC knows that even though he has long been retired from politics, the Mandela factor will once again deliver the party millions of votes that it might otherwise not win.    Experts say Mandela's political legacy could keep the ANC in power for another generation. But sooner or later, South Africans will have to contemplate life without their icon. When Mandela refused a request recently to help mediate a solution in Iraq, his personal assistant Zelda la Grange explained bluntly: "He is no longer a young man."    So horrific is the thought of Mandela's death that some media pundits in South Africa are calling on people to leave him alone, warning that too much love and affection from the world might wear out the nation's hero.    As one concerned columnist wrote recently: "He is our collective conscience (and) we worry because we cannot imagine life without him. We hope by not abusing him we can prolong his presence. Keep well, slow down and, above all, live."
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