Tensed but excited, South Africa's "post-apartheid" generation voted for the first time on Wednesday, with scores of others conveying thanks to the ruling African National Congress for liberating them from apartheid.
"It feels excellent that I am casting my vote for the first time and I am proud that I will be voting for the ANC," chuckled 20-year-old Nonhlahla Nkomo.
"The party deserves my vote. I am in a free South Africa because of the ANC," said Nkomo, a beauty therapy student.
At Orlando West school, in the vicinity of former president and ANC leader Nelson Mandela's Soweto township house, scores of young South Africans joined their parents and grandparents in rows to cast ballots in the nation's fifth democratic elections.
With South Africa's democracy turning 20 this year and the minimum voting age being 18; around two million "born frees" – those who have no memory of apartheid were entitled to vote for the first time.
Ironically, only a third of post-apartheid generation – around 646,000 – has cast their ballots.
The liberated generation has no awareness of the former racist white minority regime; they are daily reminded of those dark days, especially those growing up in Soweto, a former nerve center of the liberation struggle.
Many blacks from underprivileged strata have profited from social grants and education loans introduced by the ANC government.
"ANC is the reason I have been able to go to school," said Lehlogonolo Gumede, a 23-year-old BA student. "And I am voting for Mandela's legacy."
Her friend Dinah Gumede, 19, believes no other party has the ability to administer South Africa. "It's ANC which has got the capital. It's big, it's got the resources to change things – that is if it sticks to its manifestos," she quipped.
However a 19-yr-old Orlando West resident, Lesedi Nene, said: "I am kind of nervous, thinking 'Have I made a good decision or not?'"
Nene believes history studies have guided his vote: "Now I can see the difference, and that's why I just feel I have done the right thing to vote for the ANC."
