THEPOLITICALTRANSITION
The Election of I994
Between the completion of the interim constitution on November 18,
1993, and the election in late April 1994, South Africa continued to teeter
on the brink of civilwar. The National party and the ANC, which had bro-
kered the constitution, and the other political parties that had been in-
volved in the negotiations and had endorsed the document were commit-
ted to taking part in the election; but on February
12, the deadline for
registering to participate, the Conservative party, the IFP, the ruling par-
ties in the Ciskei and Bophuthatswana, the PAC, and the radical Azanian
People's Organisation (AZAPO) failed to do so. The PAC and AZAPO still fa-
vored the armed struggle and believed that the ANC had given too much to
the Whites; but although they made a few murderous attacks on Whites,
such as when the PAC'S military wing fired on the congregation in a church
in a Cape Town suburb, killing twelve people and injuring fifty-six, nei-
ther of them had enough resources or members to threaten the peace
process. The Ciskei and Bophuthatswana leaders wanted to hold on to the
powers they had acquired under apartheid, but unlike KwaZulu, they
were pawns of the South African government and were unpopular with
their own people.