Mandela Offers Words of Hope in Last Address

With much pomp, President Nelson Mandela delivered his last major address to Parliament on Friday, challenging South Africans to defy the “merchants of cynicism and despair.”

The prisoner-turned-beloved statesman left behind an exhortation of hope in opening the nation’s first freely elected legislature one final time.

In the speech to parliament in Cape Town, Mandela urged his compatriots to build on the country’s peaceful transition from white minority rule to democracy.

“With a new generation of leaders and a people that rolls up its sleeves in partnerships for change, we can and shall build the country of our dreams,” he said. “As we confounded the prophets of doom, we shall defy today’s merchants of cynicism and despair.”

Mandela, 80, will step down after the nation’s second all-race elections, which the text of his speech indicated will take place sometime from May 18-27. Deputy President Thabo Mbeki is widely expected to succeed him.

Mandela skipped over the passage of his speech with the date in it. The government said it was omitted because of a court challenge to electoral rules, but its very presence ended months of speculation on a probable date.

In his speech, Mandela listed the accomplishments of the African National Congress government, admitted some failings and excoriated those who refuse to let old racial hatreds die.

“The long walk is not yet over. The prize of a better life has yet to be won,” he said.

He spent much of the 90-minute speech on crime, perhaps the leading campaign issue.

South Africa’s murder rate stands at 52 per 100,000, down 10% since 1994 but still eight times that of the United States. Carjackings are a daily occurrence in cities, and scores of farmers are killed each year.

Mandela cited some progress, but he acknowledged that much more can and will be done.

“We can and shall break out of this bog. There is hope,” he said.

Mandela acknowledged that the euphoria that greeted the 1994 vote that ended apartheid had waned in the face of continuing racial divisions, high crime and poverty.

He also boasted, however, of his government’s many accomplishments. In five years, his government has brought clean water to 3 million people, electricity to 2 million people and telephones to 1.3 million people. Yet a large proportion of blacks still lack such services.