CAN'T FORGET TO REMEMBER "the vote ❎ "
You are about to read part of Nelson Mandela's autobiography A LONG WALK TO FREEDOM. In it he describes the first time he voted, and the election which brought his party ANC to power.
May be few people can't forget to remember 3 June 1993, it was a historic day for South Africa. On that day, after months of negotiations, a date was set for the country's first democratic elections. These would take place on 27 April 1994.
It was a bright and clear day on 27 April 1994. On that day, millions of South Africans, from every corner of the country, made their way to the polling stations to cast their vote in the country's first ever democratic election.
The people stood patiently in long lines for their chance to vote for the party of their choice. There was a feeling of great joy in the air.
Old men and women who had never voted before said that they felt like human being for the first time in their lives. Everybody, both black and white, spoke of their pride to be living in free country at last.
I voted at a high school in Inanda, a green and hilly township just north of Durban. It is here that John Dube, the first President of the ANC, is buried.
As I stood over his grave, I did not think of the present, but of the past. I thought about all the men and women who had fallen in the struggle. I did not go into the voting station alone that day, I was casting my vote with all the people who had given their lives to make this day possible.
Before I entered the polling station, a journalist called out, "Mr Mandela, who are you voting for?"
"I have been thinking about that all morning," I answered.
I marked an X next to the latters "ANC" and then slipped the folded ballot paper into the wooden box. I had cast the first vote of my life.
It took several days for the votes to be counted. The ANC won 62.6 per cent of the national vote, giving us 252 out of 400 seats in the National Assembly.
You are about to read part of Nelson Mandela's autobiography A LONG WALK TO FREEDOM. In it he describes the first time he voted, and the election which brought his party ANC to power.
May be few people can't forget to remember 3 June 1993, it was a historic day for South Africa. On that day, after months of negotiations, a date was set for the country's first democratic elections. These would take place on 27 April 1994.
It was a bright and clear day on 27 April 1994. On that day, millions of South Africans, from every corner of the country, made their way to the polling stations to cast their vote in the country's first ever democratic election.
The people stood patiently in long lines for their chance to vote for the party of their choice. There was a feeling of great joy in the air.
Old men and women who had never voted before said that they felt like human being for the first time in their lives. Everybody, both black and white, spoke of their pride to be living in free country at last.
I voted at a high school in Inanda, a green and hilly township just north of Durban. It is here that John Dube, the first President of the ANC, is buried.
As I stood over his grave, I did not think of the present, but of the past. I thought about all the men and women who had fallen in the struggle. I did not go into the voting station alone that day, I was casting my vote with all the people who had given their lives to make this day possible.
Before I entered the polling station, a journalist called out, "Mr Mandela, who are you voting for?"
"I have been thinking about that all morning," I answered.
I marked an X next to the latters "ANC" and then slipped the folded ballot paper into the wooden box. I had cast the first vote of my life.
It took several days for the votes to be counted. The ANC won 62.6 per cent of the national vote, giving us 252 out of 400 seats in the National Assembly.
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