In September 1993, the South African legislature approved the setting up of a multiparty Transitional Executive Council (TEC) to manage South Africa’s transition to democracy. Two months later, the Interim Constitution under which South Africa was to be governed during the transitional period was approved. On 2 February 1994, State President F.W. de Klerk announced that elections were to be held. Political parties were given a specified time to register, and only 19 political parties registered. The 1994 elections marked the end of Apartheid in South Africa. The country-wide elections were held on 27 April 1994, and were observed by a 60-member Commonwealth Observer Group (COG) under the leadership of a former Prime Minister of Jamaica, Michael Manley.

South Africa’s first democratic elections in 1994 were a conclusion of four years of expanded negotiations which had begun in 1990 with the unbanning of liberation movements, including the African National Congress (ANC),South African Communist Party (SACP) and the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC) and a commitment to a negotiated settlement by the then ruling Nationalist Party (NP).The four-year transition period, from February 1990 to April 1994, was characterised by political violence between the ANC and IFP, manifested as a low intensity war over the previous two decades. Right-wing elements within the National Party (NP) government used a more threatening strategy that was to have an influential effect on the negotiations process and the final settlement: they set up a “third force”of state security operatives and funded Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) paramilitaries to attack the ANC and civilians. The South African transition process, and the negotiations leading to the elections, attracted a substantial amount of attention both locally and internationally.

It was the first election in which all South Africans, registered on a common voters roll, could vote. The election took place under the direction of Independent Electoral Commission (IEC).The IEC is the institution responsible for running and administering elections. The IEC was established in terms of the 1993 Interim Constitution and later through the 1996 Act of Parliament. The IEC’s main aim is to strengthen constitutional democracy through the delivery of free and fair elections.

The records were transferred from IEC to National Archives and Records Service of South Africa (NARSSA) in 2021.