1994 — Inkatha Joins the 1994 Elections

On April 19, 1994, just eight days before South Africa's first democratic vote, Nelson Mandela, F. W. de Klerk, and Inkatha leader Mangosuthu Buthelezi signed the Agreement for Reconciliation and Peace. The deal ended Inkatha's boycott with constitutional guarantees for the Zulu monarchy. Already-printed ballots were amended with IFP stickers at the last minute, so Inkatha's name could appear before voters went to the polls.

With barely a week to campaign, the IFP still won over two million votes. The agreement kept a major movement inside the election rather than outside it, at the very threshold of South Africa's democratic beginning.