8 - Epilogue: the acid rain of freedom

Summary

There is a fairly short limit to the length of time that a country can live on euphoria, even if the depth of that feeling is as great as that South Africa experienced in 1994. To some extent, the structural problems of South Africa's society and economy had been masked by its political conflicts. The change of government brought them out into the open.

The Government of National Unity formed in 1994 included ministers from both Inkatha and the National Party as well as the ANC, as the agreement preceding the election had stipulated. In fact, the ANC came to dominate almost to the point of exclusivity. De Klerk had hoped that he could impose himself and the National Party as the sluice through which contacts between the ANC and the business world, the armed forces and even the civil service had to pass. However, these groups judged that they had no need of the National Party, which was left without a role to play. After two years, it withdrew from the government, claiming that in this way it could better form the democratic opposition which the country needed. In fact, however, it self-destructed in internal strife, and in the failure of leadership to adapt to a political world in which it did not have power. Eventually, in a move which would have been totally inconceivable in the 1980s, the National Party dissolved itself into the ANC and smaller political parties.

In these circumstances, the task of delivering benefits from the political transformation was entirely in the hands of the ANC. It was not going to be easy. An attempt, on Mandela's personal initiative, to allow children to learn without the pangs of hunger – by providing them with two slices of bread and peanut butter a day – worked in some areas.