Circumstances

Nelson Mandela delivered his inaugural speech on 10th of May, 1994 in Pretoria, South Africa, on the occasion of taking office as President of South Africa.

The speech was attended by four thousand national and international guests, because of the importance of Mandela’s election.

The first democratic elections in South Africa were held in 1994 after the end of the apartheid regime, which lasted from 1948 to 1991. Apartheid was a regime of racial discrimination against black South Africans and of racial segregation between white and black South Africans.

Between 1991 and 1994, intense negotiations were carried out between Mandela’s African National Congress (ANC) party and the apartheid government led by F.W. de Klerk, to end the apartheid regime. Military conflicts and other violent confrontations som…