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Bophuthatswana – one of the national states established in the 1970s – refused to allow political parties to campaign for the 27 April election. At the beginning of March 1994, President Lucas Mangope asked General Constand Viljoen – a former chief of the SADF – to help him quash a mutiny in the Bophuthatswana army.
Before General Viljoen’s force of 3 000 men could deploy, the country was invaded by an undisciplined force of several hundreds of supporters of the AWB. The AWB force was soon routed, General Viljoen withdrew his troops, President Mangope was deposed, and electioneering was allowed.
Lucas Mangope
Lucas Mangope addresses crowds
AWB forces surrender
General Constand Viljoen
The last obstacle to successful elections was the boycott of the Zulu-based Inkatha Freedom Party
(IFP). The IFP was further alienated on 28 March when African National Congress (ANC) supporters opened fire on an IFP protest outside Shell House, the ANC headquarters in Johannesburg. Nineteen IFP supporters were killed.
President De Klerk and Nelson Mandela tried to persuade IFP leader, Prince Mangosuthu Buthelezi, to join the elections at a last-ditch conference in the Kruger National Park on 8 April, but without success.
On 19 April, after the intervention of Kenyan Professor Washington Okumu, Prince Buthelezi relented and agreed to participate in the elections with only eight days to spare, provided that constitutional recognition was given to the Zulu king.
The Independent Electoral Commission quickly made arrangements to include the IFP in tens of millions of ballot papers that had already been printed.
The old Parliament met for the last time on 25 April 1994 to amend the 1993 Constitution to accommodate the IFP demand for the recognition of the constitutional position of the Zulu king.
Shell House demonstrations escalate
Amended ballot paper
IFP negotiations
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