By Lynne Duke
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, March 4, 1999; Page A15

JOHANNESBURG, March 3—President Nelson Mandela today announced June 2 as the date for South Africa's second democratic election, a vote that will mark his retirement from office and usher in a new era of post-apartheid politics.

The election will help strengthen South Africa's democracy, which took hold with the first all-races election in 1994, ending the system of white-minority rule known as apartheid. Mandela, the once imprisoned symbol of the anti-apartheid fight, became the nation's first popularly elected president.

Unlike the jubilation that followed that vote, however, this election will introduce a period of harsh choices in South Africa. The past five years of transition have demonstrated the persistence of the country's economic disparities and racial divisions, and how difficult it is to transform its formerly inward-looking economy into one that can compete in the global marketplace.

Mandela's long-awaited announcement formally kicked off what already has become a bitterly fought and racially charged campaign. Several small but boisterous opposition parties, many of them white-led, are attempting to restrain the power of the African National Congress, Mandela's still-popular ruling party.

The ANC is expected to easily retain its majority in Parliament, where it holds 63 percent of the seats. Opposition parties fear the ANC could win a two-thirds majority in June that would give it the power to change the constitution. But analysts say a two-thirds majority for the ANC is unlikely, given an increase in voter apathy over 1994 and a significant number of undecided voters.

"Whether it's a two-thirds majority or not, we want a convincing victory so that we should be able to carry out the program of reconstruction and development," Mandela, 80, said in a recent interview.

Thabo Mbeki, 55, the deputy president and leader of the ANC, is virtually certain to become the next president, marking a generational shift from the charismatic, iconic Mandela to a younger leader known for intellectual rigor and political skill but perceived as lacking in mass appeal. Mandela is an exceptionally hard act to follow, but Mbeki already has been running the country day to day as Mandela recedes from official duties.

Still, Mbeki's probable five-year term is expected to shift focus from the themes of national reconciliation and unity that Mandela has pushed, with limited success, to those of national transformation and redistribution aimed at assisting the country's 87 percent nonwhite majority and expanding the economy.

The ANC pledged "a better life for all" in 1994, but it has not produced all of the housing it promised for the millions still living in shacks or overhauled an educational system still beset by apartheid-era inequalities. Slowly, however, the government has brought electricity, water and telephone service to millions of homes, as it promised.

Opinion polls suggest the ANC would receive 54 percent of the vote today, compared with nearly 63 percent in 1994. The New National Party, the post-apartheid incarnation of the National Party, which created apartheid, has fallen to about 9 percent from 20 percent in 1994, according to the polls. The third-largest party after the 1994 election, the Zulu-based Inkatha Freedom Party, has fallen to about 5 percent, down from more than 10 percent.

The electorate appears to be "less committed to particular parties, so [there's] more of a floating vote," said Tom Lodge, a political analyst with the Election Institute, a monitoring body.

The apathy and uncertainty that is behind the falling fortunes of most parties also is reflected in low voter registration. Of South Africa's roughly 25.5 million eligible voters, only 15 million have registered.

Unlike 1994, when anyone with a valid South African identification card could vote, and 19.5 million people did, this election allows only the holders of a new computer-coded ID to vote. These IDs have been available since 1996, when they were introduced as part of a series of reforms to apartheid practices.

But the white-led Democratic Party and the New Nationalists have claimed in court challenges that the use of the coded IDs is unconstitutionally restrictive. The New Nationalists, whose challenge was thrown out of the Cape High Court last week as groundless, plans to appeal to the Constitutional Court. The Democrats' challenge in the Pretoria High Court is pending until after the latest in a series of voter registration periods is held this weekend.

Although huge numbers of people still are to be issued the new IDs and registered to vote, the Independent Electoral Commission that is organizing the voting says the June 2 election date is manageable.

"We believe, within that time frame, we can deliver a good election, free and fair," said Mandla Mchunu, an electoral commission official.