Has South Africa's 'get-out-of-jail' vote lived up to the hype?
My mother told me when she cast her ballot on 27 April 1994 that the vote felt like a “get-out-of-jail card” – she felt empowered.
She was 43 years old at the time – and like millions of other South Africans it was the first time she had voted.
It was the culmination of decades of resistance and armed struggle against racist and violent white-minority rule.
I was too young to vote then, though I was allowed by electoral officials to ink my finger, and I saw what it meant for her and the disenfranchised black majority to be free, to finally choose their own government.
It was tense a few days before the polls with widespread fears of political violence. The whiff of tear gas often filled the air in Kwa-Thema, the township east of Johannesburg where I lived.
Armoured military vehicles drove past our home several times a day and into the night – where gunshots frequently rang out at a distance.
