The just-completed elections in South Africa mark something of a miracle against all odds. Much of this can be attributed to the character and determination of a single man, writes PNS commentator Ross Herbert. Herbert is a journalist with the Star newspaper in South Africa.

JOHANNESBURG -- For South Africa, a nation that emerged from 350 years of brutal race-based government only five years ago, the country's second all-race election today marks a milestone in a miraculous political transformation.

Although the ruling African National Congress was sure to win, the contest heralds a growing democratic maturity which increasingly sets South Africa apart from the pattern of divisive, often corrupt, elections across Africa. At a more emotional level, Wednesday also marks the passing of the torch of leadership from one of the nation's and the world's most beloved figures -- Nelson Mandela.

On Monday, Mandela veered away from the mass rallies at which he has been appearing and walked, to the alarm of security agents, through some of Johannesburg's quiet suburban shopping malls to say goodbye to the people.

"I am going down to my village. That is where I'm going to be because I'm essentially a country boy. I want to see a blade of grass, I want to see the birds as they are flying around and I want to listen to the noise of the streams. But I do want to say goodbye," Mandela said.

The jaunt was vintage Mandela, who has refused to allow his presidency to become suffused with the formality and tight security that keeps most heads of state insulated from their people.

In 1995, several hundred ex-ANC operatives and fighters marched on the Union Buildings in the capital, Pretoria, refusing to leave until they were granted some form of job or pension for their service against Apartheid. Late that night, Mandela walked into the crowd of angry men, with only two nervous security guards following him.

Mandela told the mob to sit and instantly they fell silent and sat. Mandela pointed to one man and asked what was his problem. The man recounted his story, then sat while Mandela turned to another. After listening to many stories, he raised his hands, said he understood and would take care of them and they should go home, which they obediently did.

The humility and authority evident in such incidents play a big part in South Africa's successful transformation. Mandela always gives the ANC, as an organization, credit for his successes but political analysts and ordinary citizens credit him personally for setting the tone of reconciliation that allowed South Africa to transform itself without the bloody battles that marked the change of leaders in so many African states.

After five years of comparatively smooth government, it is easy to forget how tense South Africa was in 1994. Whites stockpiled food, white racists launched a last ditch bombing campaign. Well armed and organized white soldiers and police and much more numerous blacks could have fought each other to a bloody standstill.

For leading the nation away from that abyss, Mandela is credited with playing a roll as important to South Africa as George Washington did in America. In a world of often venal, bitter politics, Mandela's grace and forgiveness has made him a giant.

Jailed for 27 years, much of it at hard labor, Mandela was released by the white government in 1990 as a sign of goodwill. Although few men ever had more cause for bitterness, Mandela played the role of conciliator. As president, he continued to reach across racial lines, visiting white families hit by crime, standing in triumph on the winner's podium with the nearly all-white South African rugby team, even having tea with the widow of Hendrik Verwoerd, whose regime created South Africa's system of black homelands.

Some black pundits have criticized Mandela for going too far, but he has stuck to his view that whites (who represent about 14 percent of the population), as well as smaller minorities of Indians, Orientals and mixed race "coloreds" all must be part of South Africa's future.

His commitment to peaceful solutions and dialogue has also driven his foreign policy, which has played an active role in diffusing African crises. Although on his release Mandela echoed the ANC's calls for nationalization of industry, he stopped quickly and adopted a free-market strategy.

Much of the credit for these changes, made in the face of criticism from some ANC members, goes to Mandela's deputy, Thabo Mbeki, who will be inaugurated president on June 16. Mbeki, who has done most of the day-to-day decision making in the past two years, is a polished, careful, intelligent politician who spent years in exile. Compared to Mandela, who exudes warmth and charisma, Mbeki seems cold and cunning.

Mbeki has publicly spoken much more often than Mandela on the need to address the glaring discrepancies between white and black incomes and access to services. Mbeki seems to be better equipped than Mandela for such issues, which require hard managerial skills, but he has followed Mandela's lead in working with whites.

As he strode through the shopping mall Monday, shaking hands, Mandela told reporters, "I want to say to the whites that we have made it possible for everybody to enjoy being South African. We, the ANC, have overthrown white supremacy but we could not do it alone -- Africans, coloreds, Indians, whites had to work together to make this country a miracle of the world."