History of South Africa The Democratic Party and Pan Africanist Congress, among others, formed a parliamentary opposition in the country's first non-racial parliament. Nelson Mandela was elected as President on 9 May 1994 and formed a Government of National Unity, consisting of the ANC, the National Party and Inkatha. On 10 May 1994 Mandela was inaugurated as South Africa's new President in Pretoria with Thabo Mbeki and F. W. De Klerk as his vice-presidents. The Government of National Unity lapsed at the end of the first parliament sitting in 1999, with the ANC becoming the sole party in power while maintaining a strategic alliance
Star of South Africa, Officer the Fount of Honour, and in 1994 the President. Civil honours were gradually introduced from May 1967. They were revised in the 1980s and in 1986 a Chancery of Orders was established in the Office of the State President, after 1994 the Presidency, to administer most of them. Most of these honours remained in use after 1994, until an entirely new honours system was introduced in December 2002. The military Order of the Star of South Africa, established in 1975 and conferred on general and flag officers in two classes, was named after the first large diamond to be found