As pointed out above, the National Party of De Klerk was extremely negative, and at times plainly immoral in its campaign.

‘When I visited Los Angeles in the early nineties, I took a photograph flanked by two internationally famous artists, Elizabeth Taylor and Michael Jackson. In the run-up to the April 1994 election, the National Party published a scurrilous pamphlet entitled Winds of Change in which they cut out Michael Jackson; and Elizabeth Taylor and I now appeared all alone. They aggravated that deceitful exercise by making defamatory remarks against both of us. The Independent Electoral Commission forced them to withdraw the pamphlet.

‘The National Party campaign was not only immoral, but also racist. They exploited the fears of the racial minorities, especially those of the coloured and Indian communities, by arguing that a victory of the ANC would result in their repression by Africans. They criticised Dr Allan Boesak, a prominent cleric from the coloured community, for campaigning for all sections of the South African population, instead of confining himself exclusively to coloureds.

‘Another example of this racism was again directed at me personally. Heidi Dennis, a young coloured teacher from the Beacon Valley Senior Secondary School in the coloured community in Mitchell’s Plain, asked me to help them to raise funds to paint their school. I then requested Syd Muller of Woolworths not only to provide funds, as asked by Heidi, but [also] to upgrade the school by building more classrooms and a laboratory.

‘When Woolworths completed the project,’ Mandela continues, ‘we went to launch it. A large group of coloured women staged a protest demonstration against me. One of them screamed and said in Afrikaans, “Kaffer, gaan huis toe” (“Kaffir, go home”), a derogatory jibe. All these racist and deceitful manoeuvres were committed by De Klerk’s party, a leader I had repeatedly praised inside and outside the country as a man of integrity with whom we could do business.

‘The ANC tried to the best of its ability to avoid descending to the level of the National Party. We remained focused and constructive. We strongly urged all South Africans, irrespective of colour or creed, to join the fight for a democratic, united, non-racial and non-sexist South Africa. In that campaign we also experienced difficulties from some of our members who made rash statements contrary to our basic policy. We immediately condemned publicly such behaviour.’9

It should have been expected, given the high stakes, that the election campaigns would test the mettle of the major contenders. The National Party, which had so much to lose, could only overstate its record as a vehicle that had brought about change, while the ANC, still untested, had to promise to bring about a new dispensation for all. In the cut and thrust of contention it was inevitable that the election campaign would, according to a Western Cape newspaper report, turn into ‘a torrid war of words between the African National Congress and the National Party. Each party accused the other of “dirty tricks” and “underhand electioneering”.Each has lodged complaints with the Independent Electoral Commission over the other’s campaign conduct, posters and pamphlets.’10

In the opening salvo of mud-slinging, the ANC had published a pamphlet depicting the National Party’s regional premiership candidate, Hernus Kriel, leading a trio of candidates, two black and one coloured, as dogs on leashes, with fifty-rand notes dropping out from Mr Kriel’s pocket. Not to be outdone, the National Party had gone for the jugular. ‘Later today,’ continues the newspaper report, ‘the IEC is due to give a final ruling on a National Party comic book which the ANC alleges is racist and which relies on “swart gevaar” [“black danger”] tactics to woo coloured voters. It is entitled “Winds of Change Blow Through South Africa – Will You Make It Through the Storm?”’11

The National Party’s deployment of swart gevaar – the notional devastation that would follow the advent of a black government – went against the grain of Mandela’s cherished cause of reconciliation. Despite this, Mandela recognised that whites – especially Afrikaners – had to be made part of the evolving new South Africa. Thabo Mbeki echoed this crucial point in an interview with Joel Netshitenzhe and Tony Trew in Johannesburg in 2014:*

[The] reconciliation business had to do with [Madiba’s wish to say] ‘Let’s protect the democratic gains from this potential threat,’ and therefore this became a preoccupation not so much because he was a worshipper of reconciliation in itself but it served a purpose in terms of protecting what we had gained … He had to attend to this issue of Afrikaners and showing that he was not a monster, he was not a threat and so on, in order to solve a problem. Because … there is no Mandela with regard to this matter about reconciliation who is different from the rest of the leadership of the ANC – this reconciliation, addressing the issue of white fears, was connected to his concern about this possibility of counter-revolution.12

‘The white right wing,’ Mandela writes, ‘was another potentially destabilising factor that affected the general mood during the period leading up to the elections … Stories were abounding about whites who were adopting a siege mentality, stocking up their houses with food and other emergency supplies.’13

Representatives of local and international media houses and agencies and independent journalists and photographers went all around the country, the majority primed to cover a war zone. They had been promised a war. Media spokespeople from the ANC’s numerous foreign missions gave on-the-spot briefings about what visitors should expect in South Africa, downplaying the rumours of mayhem. The citizens, armed only with their green identity documents, waited for the polling stations to open.

Mandela was greatly encouraged by the preparations. ‘On the organisational and logistical level, just as much public interest was generated. The Independent Electoral Commission set about preparing for the elections, establishing offices in different parts of the country. Amongst their tasks was to monitor the general atmosphere that could affect the measure to which the elections would be free and fair.

‘It filled one with pride,’ he continues, ‘to observe how many South Africans were warming up to the mechanics of democratic elections.