Country's centre still holds

Take a bow South Africa. On 16 June 1999, Thabo Mbeki gave his inaugural speech as president as he stepped in to replace the father of the nation, Nelson Mandela.

- Sydney Majoko

Few will remember that doomsday conspiracy theorists had predicted the 1999 election would be the end of SA as the world knew it.

They predicted that as soon as Mandela stepped out of office the inevitable war of the races would happen and the glue that held the country together would melt away and chaos would ensue. Which is what had prompted Mbeki to quote Irish poet WB Yeats when he accepted the election result: "The centre held, things did not fall apart."

The centre did indeed hold after Mandela left. Yes, things did not go as the majority would have wished they would, but South Africa is still standing 25 years after Nelson Mandela left the Union Buildings.

When South Africa went to the polls in May, some of the fears that people had in '94 and '99 were stoked back into existence.

Certain sections of the population threatened the election would not be held unless their terms were met, however messed up those terms were.