The apartheid regime in South Africa officially ended in:

Answer Details

The apartheid regime in South Africa officially ended in 1994, when the country held its first multiracial democratic elections on 26-29 April. These elections were open to citizens of all races for the first time in South Africa's history, and they resulted in the election of Nelson Mandela as president under the banner of the African National Congress (ANC).

It is helpful to distinguish several key dates in the dismantling of apartheid:

• 1990 - President F.W. de Klerk unbanned the ANC, the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC), and the South African Communist Party, and released Nelson Mandela from prison after 27 years. This marked the beginning of the transition, but apartheid laws were still in force.
• 1992 - A whites-only referendum approved the continuation of the reform process, and negotiations (the CODESA talks) were underway. Apartheid structures still existed.
• 1994 - The first fully democratic elections were held and an interim constitution came into effect, formally ending apartheid as a system of governance.
• 1996 - The final Constitution of the Republic of South Africa was adopted, but by this point apartheid had already ended two years earlier.

The key marker for the official end of apartheid is 1994, because that is when the political system based on racial exclusion was replaced by a democratic government elected by universal suffrage.