South Africa Freedom Day: Did the 'get-out-of-jail' vote live up to the hype? - BBC News

Thirty years after Nelson Mandela's election and apartheid's end, South Africans reflect on democracy.

15 hours agoShareclose panelShare pageCopy linkAbout sharingRelated TopicsSouth Africa elections 2024Image source, Getty ImagesWith elections fast approaching in South Africa, the BBC's Nomsa Maseko reflects on 30 momentous years of democracy and how the country has changed since the end of the racist system of apartheid.

My mother told me when she cast her ballot on 27 April 1994 that the vote felt like a "get-out-of-jail card" - she felt empowered.

She was 43 years old at the time - and like millions of other South Africans it was the first time she had voted.

It was the culmination of decades of resistance and armed struggle against racist and violent white-minority rule.

I was too young to vote then, though I was allowed by electoral officials to ink my finger, and I saw what it meant for her and the disenfranchised black majority to be free, to finally choose their own government.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-68896379

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