Could De Klerk's National Party have won in 1994 against Mandela's ANC?

Following the end of Apartheid and the enfranchisement of black voters, could De Klerk's nationalist party still have won against Mandela's ANC in the 1994 South African elections?
 

Ian_W

Banned
Nope. They don't have the political infrastructure in black communities to contact the newly enfranchised voters.

IMO they did very well to do as well as they did.
 

A. Danov

Banned
Not a chance. Madiba was so popular and so loved by black S Africans and they were so ready to visibly repudiate minority rule that the election was practically a foregone conclusion.
 

Bluesock

Banned
About a 0% chance of that happening. Actaully the NP was able to pick up a small percentage of the black vote but at the time ANC and Mandela were far too popular to lose.
One scenoria you could create is not have COSATU, the biggest trade Union in South Africa ally itself with the ANC and instead create an alternate workers or Labour party, there was some distrust amongst trade uiniosts about the ANC commitment to workers.But at best they might take 10% of the vote.
An ANC with a less secure majority though could see the Government of National Unity last longer.
As for the NP though, they did as well as they were ever gonna do
 
I don't think they could have. It wasn't just the blacks voting for Mandela, it was a bunch of liberal anti-apartheid whites who also voted for Mandela being the 'new South Africa', as opposed to De Klerk's ties to the old apartheid regime. Even if the numbers were even, De Klerk's bunch just had way too much baggage for people to vote for them comfortably.
 
I don't think they could have. It wasn't just the blacks voting for Mandela, it was a bunch of liberal anti-apartheid whites who also voted for Mandela being the 'new South Africa', as opposed to De Klerk's ties to the old apartheid regime. Even if the numbers were even, De Klerk's bunch just had way too much baggage for people to vote for them comfortably.

It should also be pointed out that a sizable quantity of South Africa's colored populations supported the NP in 1994 because of fear of what the ANC would do in power. That and the presence of Inaktha, as well as remembering how close South Africa came to civil war in the early 1990s, is why De Klerk became Vice-President in Mandela's cabinet and why the first new government put so much effort into reconciliation.

The odds of the National Party, which had created apartheid, being able to win an all-race election is more or less zero, even if Mandela wasn't on the other side and Inaktha was more powerful and the ANC hadn't large abandoned it's communist sympathies by 1994.
 
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