SOUTH AFRICANS REFLECT ON MANDELA’S LEGACY A DECADE AFTER HIS DEATH The 10th anniversary of the death of the first democratically elected president of South Africa
December 5 marked the 10th anniversary of the death of the first democratically elected president of South Africa, Nelson Mandela.
The 1993 Nobel Peace Prize winner brokered a non-violent transition between the apartheid government he spent his life fighting against, into a constitutional democracy in South Africa.
Lauded globally as a struggle icon and for his work as a statesman, the country’s first Black president died a decade ago on December 5, 2013.
Former minister in Mandela’s cabinet, politician, and former anti-apartheid struggle veteran, Valli Moosa, worked closely with Nelson Mandela during his years in office and helped spearhead the project to create the country’s Constitution that is still praised as one of the most progressive in the world, talked about Nelson Mandela’s wish, and legacy, for South Africa.
While current-day South Africa is a constitutional democracy, in the year before its 30th year since its first free and fair elections, it is still marred by poverty, unemployment, crime, gender-based violence, inequality, and political in-fighting and corruption.
South African actress, poet, and daughter of anti-apartheid political exiles under the apartheid government, Lebogang (Lebo) Mashile, reflected on what South Africans need to do with Nelson Mandela’s legacy today.