The day apartheid died: Bombs and chaos no bar to voters (original) (raw)

South Africans defied organisational chaos, personal hardship and long queues to throng polling stations yesterday for the historic all-race election that crowned their long march towards democracy.

While the authorities were under growing pressure last night to extend the three-day poll after serious problems in the first day of voting, the momentum for freedom looked unstoppable, with a new nation coming into effect at the stroke of midnight when the old flag was lowered and the new constitution took effect.

'Today is a day like no other before it . . . today marks the dawn of our freedom,' said Nelson Mandela, the African National Congress leader who is expected to become the country's first black president. Mr Mandela spent 27 of his 75 years in jail for fighting apartheid.

'Years of imprisonment could not stamp out our determination to be free. Years of intimidation and violence could not stop us and we will not be stopped now,' he said.

President F. W. de Klerk, whose decision in 1990 to abandon apartheid, opened the way to the new South Africa , said: 'I wanted this election to take place . . . that is what I have been working for.'

Around the country, the infirm, elderly and sick defied both a rightwing bombing campaign and widespread problems at polling stations in an extraordinary demonstration of hunger for the franchise.

But the chaos accompanying polling on the first day - set aside for those facing physical difficulties - raised fears that many of the population might not get to vote.

The Inkatha Freedom Party leader, Chief Mangosuthu Buthelezi, petitioned the Independent Electoral Commission to extend voting by three days, charging that the chaos smacked of sabotage.

The commission vice-chairman, Dikgang Moseneke, said the commission had hopelessly underestimated the problems of running free and fair elections , particularly in KwaZulu-Natal. Mr Moseneke said Inkatha's call to extend the voting period would be carefully considered. 'Natal is a special case . . . We may well have to consider an extension,' he said.

Problems with polling resulted largely from delays in the delivery of indelible ink to mark voters' hands, ballot papers and even polling stations.

There was particular confusion in Natal over stickers for Inkatha which were to have been added at the bottom of ballot papers because the party joined the election late.

A member of the Inkatha central committee, Joe Mathews, said: 'In quite a large number of polling stations the administration didn't turn up and the stations were closed. Then we started getting reports that the IFP sticker wasn't there. It affects other parties too, because if the sticker's not there it's a spoilt paper. So it doesn't benefit anybody.'

Stickers adding Inkatha's name to the ballot appeared nowhere on ballots overseas. In London, voters were invited to add to the bottom of the ballot paper the name of any registered party for which they wished to vote.

President De Klerk said he was worried and promised action to smooth the next days of voting. 'We dare not deprive any South African of the right to vote,' he said.

The Transkei leader, Major General Bantu Holomisa, who is an ANC candidate, joined in appeals for an extension to the election , reporting that 602 polling stations in the homeland had no voting equipment.

Lawyers for Human Rights called on the IEC to make a public announcement that an extension would granted if necessary, to defuse rising tension among voters who feared they would not be able to cast their ballots.

But the ballot went on. In hospitals, patients clutching their saline drip bags queued to vote. Nurses were seen holding patients upright.

In Katlehong township near Johannesburg, a pensioner spoke for many: 'I think my dignity has been restored,' said Magdalene Kutoane, aged 65.

Friday Mavuso, aged 45, crippled by a police bullet when he was 22, added: 'I have said all my life we shall overcome, and we have.'

There was at least a pause in the bombing campaign which claimed 21 lives and injured hundreds on the eve of the poll.