PRETORIA, South Africa (AP) — South Africa celebrated 30 years since the end of apartheid and the birth of its democracy with a ceremony in the capital on Saturday that included a 21-gun salute and the waving of the country’s multicolored flag.
But any feeling of celebration on this important anniversary was countered by a growing discontent with the current government.
President Cyril Ramaphosa presided over the meeting in a huge white tent in the gardens of the government buildings in Pretoria as head of state.
He also spoke as leader of the African National Congress party, which was widely credited with free South Africa’s black majority of the racist system of oppression that made the country a pariah for almost half a century.
The ANC has been in power since the first democratic and multiracial elections on April 27, 1994, the vote that officially put an end to apartheid.
But the Freedom Day holiday marking that day had a poignant scenario: analysts and pollsters predict the declining popularity of the party once led by Nelson Mandela is likely to lose its parliamentary majority for the first time as a new generation of South Africans makes its voice heard in what could be the most important election since 1994 next month.
“Few days in the life of our nation can compare with that day, when freedom was born,” said Ramaphosa in a speech focused on nostalgia for 1994, when black people were first allowed to vote, the once-banned ANC came to power and Mandela became the country’s first black president. “South Africa has changed forever. It signaled a new chapter in our nation’s history, a moment that resonated in Africa and around the world.”
“On that day, the dignity of all the people of South Africa was restored,” said Ramaphosa.
The president, who stood in front of a banner with the word “Freedom”, also recognized the main problems that South Africa still faces three decades later with vast poverty and inequality, issues that will once again be central when millions of people vote on May 29th. Ramaphosa admitted there had been “setbacks”.
The 1994 elections transformed South Africa from a country where blacks and other non-whites were denied most basic freedoms, not just the right to vote. Laws controlled where they lived, where they could go on a given day, and what jobs they could have. After the fall of apartheid, a constitution was adopted that guarantees the rights of all South Africans, regardless of their race, religion, gender or sexuality.
But this has not significantly improved the lives of millions of people, with South Africa’s black majority, which represents more than 80% of the 62 million population, still overwhelmingly affected by extreme poverty.
O official unemployment rate is 32%, the highest figure in the world, and more than 60% for young people between 15 and 24 years old. More than 16 million South Africans — 25% of the country — depend on monthly social assistance subsidies to survive.
South Africa is still the most unequal country in the world in terms of wealth distribution, according to the World Bank, with race being a key factor.
Although the damage of apartheid remains difficult to undo, the ANC is increasingly being blamed for South Africa’s current problems.
In the week leading up to the anniversary, countless South Africans were asked what 30 years of freedom from apartheid meant to them. The dominant response was that although 1994 was a landmark moment, it is now overshadowed by unemployment, violent crime, corruption and almost collapse basic services like the electricity and water that plague South Africa in 2024.
It is also poignant that many South Africans who never experienced apartheid and are referred to as “Born Free” are now old enough to vote.
Outside the tent where Ramaphosa spoke before dignitaries and politicians, a group of young black South Africans born after 1994 and who support a new political party called Rise Mzansi wore T-shirts with the words “2024 is our 1994”. Their message was that they were looking beyond the ANC and to another change in their future in next month’s elections.
“They don’t know what happened before 1994. They don’t know,” said Seth Mazibuko, a longtime Rise Mzansi supporter and a well-known anti-apartheid activist in the 1970s.
“Let’s agree that we made a mistake,” Mazibuko said of the past 30 years, which have left the young people who supported him directly affected by the second-worst youth unemployment rate in the world, behind Djibouti.
He added: “There is a new chance in next month’s elections.”
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Gerald Imray reported from Cape Town.
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