Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, April 27, 1994 TAG: 9404270090
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA LENGTH: Medium
Refusing to be cowed by a wave of deadly bombings, the elderly and infirm came in droves from squatter settlements and thatched villages to mark a simple cross on a piece of paper.
Some crawled and others were pushed to the polls in wheelbarrows. Many broke down in tears after making their mark.
``We need freedom,'' said 72-year-old Florence Ndimangele, voting with other elderly people near Cape Town. ``We are tired of being slaves.''
Despite late-arriving ballots and lines so long in some places that people collapsed, the mood among blacks casting the first vote of their lives was jubilant.
Tuesday's voting was reserved for the aged, invalids, people in hospitals and the military. General voting begins today, when African National Congress leader Nelson Mandela and President F.W. de Klerk will cast their ballots.
``Today marks the dawn of our freedom,'' Mandela said.
For Gladys Shabalala, a 62-year-old retired nurse voting near Durban, it was a day of immeasurable significance.
``There have been so many white elections,'' she said. ``I used to pass the posters on the road and dream about whether I would be able to vote. That's why I came so early, to see if this is really happening.''
Her seven daughters, she said, will see ``a real new South Africa.''
After two days of bombings by suspected right-wingers that killed 21 people and injured more than 150, no violence was reported Tuesday.
The heavy turnout was a striking repudiation of the bomb-throwers, as blacks went out of their way to show they would not be denied their moment of glory.
``I can't wait to vote,'' said 29-year-old David Maimola, speaking from a hospital bed where he is recovering from injuries sustained in a bomb blast Sunday.
``After what has happened to me ... I want a new government.''
The election, set to conclude Thursday night, will select a national assembly and nine provincial assemblies. The ANC is expected to win about 60 percent of the vote. Second place should go to de Klerk's National Party, which implemented apartheid to separate the races, then dismantled it under growing pressure at home and abroad.
The 75-year-old Mandela, who struggled all his life against apartheid and spent 27 years in prison, is expected to be sworn in as president of South Africa's first democratic government on May 10. He will govern a deeply divided country, with unemployment and illiteracy higher than 50 percent among blacks.
The vote brings to a close an era in which 5 million whites dominated 35 million blacks, browns and Asians.
Some of the most poignant scenes were in remote areas such as Usuthu in Natal province, where hundreds of elderly and handicapped voters took shelter under thorn trees as voting in the Zulu homeland got off to a chaotic start.
Many had hobbled through the hills on crutches. Some came in wheelbarrows pushed by relatives and others were dropped off by trucks and literally crawled into the line, eager to vote. They were disappointed to find ballots had not yet arrived.
by CNB