The Guardian from London, Greater London, England • 26

THE GUARDIAN Wednesday April 27 1994 Today Nelson Mandela becomes the world's most famous first-time voter in an historic election that will also make him South Africa's first black president. Gary Younge joined the ANC leader on the campaign trail, where each rally brought a heady release for the cheering crowds on Robben Island with Walter Sisulu Domitailhrfl ViD The prisoner Mandela in captivity 6 PI CANNOT sell my I 1 birthright. Only free I men can negotiate. I will return." So said Nelson Mandela in a message to the people of Soweto in 1985, responding to an offer of conditional release from prison from South Africa's former president, Botha. Nine years later he has returned and negotiated, and today exercises his birthright as the world's most famous first-time voter.

I have followed Mandela for the past five weeks on the final stretch of his long march to the South African presidency, watching him address rallies and press conferences, on walkabouts and official ceremonies. To call it his "election campaign" might confuse it with the limp affairs we are subjected to in Britain, where people in sharp suits or shoulder pads convince themselves they are getting audiences worked up over tax bands and EC employment legislation. Mandela's campaign has been more like a series of political orgasms; each rally a passionate climax offering a brief, heady, release from deep-seated frustrations. Thousands of people, squashed in cattle trucks or minibuses, will travel more than 100 miles and wait for hours in the shelter of a ramshackle stadium just for a glimpse of Mandela. Some, who do not have access to a television, will only have seen his face on posters and leaflets.

His arrival is signalled by the campaign song, Sekunjalo Ke Nako (Now Is The Time). Jean-Paul Gaul-tier would call it Afrotrash lowest common denominator lyrics, part Xhosa, part Zulu, part English, with an irritating tune that will keep you humming for the rest of the day. None of which bothers the crowd. They all, from the old and toothless to the young and barefoot, dance along until they spot the first car of his cavalcade.The sighting generates a rush of energy through the crowd. Women ululate and children cheer.

TCu by the ANC's security department for six weeks during the early eighties as a result of internal rivalry. Gill Marcus, his deputy, spent her years in exile clipping newspapers for the ANC office in London. Barbara Masakela (sister of jazz trumpeter Hugh) became head of the department of arts and culture while in exile in Zambia. Marcel Golding, former deputy of South Africa's mineworkers union, is the bright young thing to watch among the ANC leadership. Jesse Duarte, Mandela's special assistant, is the top woman candidate in one region.

They divided the campaign into three phases. First came the People's Forums: Mandela and other senior ANC members travelled the country addressing mass rallies and answering questions. Then they spelled out the party's plans for housing, employment and education as outlined in the RDPand contrasted them with the National Party's record. In the final two weeks, they concentrated on trying to make sure people felt comfortable with the change. Throughout, there has been the constant theme of voter education.

It was no accident that Mandela did not evoke painful memories from the past, such as his time in prison, the Sharpeville massacre or the Soweto uprising. For, given the ANC's assurance of victory from the outset, it was decided that the campaign would be positive. "It would be patronising to tell black South Africans they have had a bad life under apartheid," says Ken Modise, who is in charge of the account at the ANC's ad agency. "Everybody knows the ANC was a highly effective liberation movement. But will it be an effective government? South Africans look to the ANC as the incumbent.

We had to show people we had the wherewithal to govern." As well as their political roles, Duarte and Masakela look after Mandela's personal needs. "We make sure that he has a jumper Barbara Masakela, the head of staff in Mandela's office. Not all the rallies are as formulaic. In Cape Town, where the ANC stands a serious chance of losing, no punches were pulled where election kitsch was concerned. An inflatable zeppelin in ANC colours floated next to the stage and white pigeons were released along with black, gold and green balloons.

Then, in what seemed like a mixture of liberation politics and karaoke, two singers led the crowd in a marathon rendition of Sekunjalo Ke Nako and one verse of We Are The world as Mandela danced his way on to the stage. In Umlazi, Natal, he bored a crowd rigid by taking more than half an hour to read out the new constitutional rights he had proposed to the Zulu king, Goodwill Zwelithini. But he then went on to make an emotive speech which conjured memories of the Mandela of old: "I am the father of all of you and I love you like you were my children. It saddens me that I must leave you now. I wish I could put you all in my pocket and take you home.

And when I am troubled or lonely take you out and see all your smiling faces again." NCE, in the Eastern (Cape, he actually turned up on time and in Durban he turned up an hour early, made his speech to a Youth Congress and lett, much to the frustration of the journalists who arrived shortly afterwards. At another rally he told supporters to go home before they caught pneumonia when it started raining. He had only been speaking for 10 minutes. The team primarily responsible for the campaign strategy comprises six activists with varied political histories. Carl Niehaus, the main ANC spokesperson, is an Afrikaner from a very conservative working-class background.

Pallo Jordan, the secretary of information and publicity, is a fierce critic of the South African Communist Party who was detained Look all the way down the ballot paper until you see the ANC flag with the wheel, the spear and the assegai the ANC emblem and the letters A. N. What letters should you look for?" the crowd shouts. "Very good. And there you will see the face of a very handsome young man whose hair has been turned grey by all the worry you have given him." Laughter.

"There you should put your cross." He goes through exactly the same routine again, using the same joke, but explaining that this time it is for the provincial ballots. It is all solid stuff, especially in a country where 70 per cent of the electorate have not voted before and many are illiterate. But as one onlooker pointed out: "It is hardly Martin Luther King." The people are then asked to raise their fists for the ANC anthem, Nkosi Sikelel iAfrika (Lord Bless Africa). And after the brief reign of silence that follows that soft, powerful, song a protracted spell of chaos ensues as Mandela is bundled into his car before the crowd can penetrate the lines of ANC marshalls. For at least half an hour after his departure, the road to the motorway is lined with supporters punching the air and shouting "Viva" at every vehicle that passes.

By this time Mandela will have been whisked away at high speed to the next venue either by road or air. If he is flying, the ANC hires a different helicopter every time. Using the same one, his security men say, would make him an easy terrorist target. In his personal affairs Mandela is a stickler for punctuality, but on the campaign trail he is invariably late. Those close to him say it is his insistence on shaking every hand that makes it over his wall of bodyguards and a genuine desire for human contact that is largely to blame.

"He loves to talk to people and is very polite. He will tell his bodyguards off if he sees them being even the slightest bit rough with anyone," says All wave their flags and placards intensely, creating first ripples and then waves of excitement that roll on a sea of black, gold and green. Mandela has returned on the back of an open truck. He stands tall, straight and dignified; the black knight on the white horse, slayer of apartheid and harbinger of majority rule. With a mischievous grin on his face and his fist punching the air.

He will insist on doing a lap of honour, even if one has not been planned, so that no one will go home disappointed. If it is just the excitement and atmosphere you have come for, it is best to leave now. By the time he has taken his place on the stage the orgasm is over. The local ANC official who has been charged with giving Mandela a brief introduction as if he needed one is eager to cut himself a slice of the glory. He will keep going until the microphone is wrested from his hands.

And by the time Mandela rises to speak, after the prayer has been read and "Viva ANC" chanted countless times, the momentum is gone and the crowd worn out with the waiting and excitement. Mandela's accomplishments are many but public speaking is no longer one of them. His bodyguards will tell you that during the Rivonia and Treason Trials, when as a qualified lawyer he represented himself and his co-defendants, black people used to come from miles around to hear him cut the white man down to size with his sharp wit and analytical prowess. His powers of analysis are still sharp but his slow oratorical style appears laboured and stiff. His speeches are also unimaginative.

He starts off with a factual explanation of the ANC's reconstruction and development programme (RDP) the liberation movement's answer to Roosevelt's New Deal and then goes on to voter education. "Take your ID and go to the polling station. When you get to the first booth you will be voting for the national parliament..