it's almost like comparing Chairman Mao to President Obama.... come on Mandela went to jail, did MM go to jail? It's beyond comparison!
THE MAIN DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE TWO IS MAINLY THEIR ATTITUDE TO HOLDING OF POWER,STRONG POWER & ABSOLUTE POWER.
It is fairly obvious to Mandela that Thabo Mbeki was a lesser leader,and it has been proven so by subsequent development,but after just 4 years in power,he decided to give up the power and his succesor in 1999 in his truoublesome country
Today,12 years after Mandela gave up his political power,S.Africa has moved on,this month China chairman HU extended an invitation to S.Africa to join in the BRICS group meeting..
Mandela became the oldest elected President of South Africa when he took office at the age of 75 in 1994. He decided not to stand for a second term and retired in 1999, to be succeeded by Thabo Mbeki.
South Africa's first multi-racial elections in which full enfranchisement was granted were held on 27 April 1994. The ANC won 62% of the votes in the election, and Mandela, as leader of the ANC, was inaugurated on 10 May 1994 as the country's first black President, with the National Party's de Klerk as his first deputy and Thabo Mbeki as the second in the Government of National Unity.[76] As President from May 1994 until June 1999, Mandela presided over the transition from minority rule and apartheid, winning international respect for his advocacy of national and international reconciliation.[77] Mandela encouraged black South Africans to get behind the previously hated Springboks (the South African national rugby team) as South Africa hosted the 1995 Rugby World Cup.[78] (This is the theme of the 2009 film Invictus.) After the Springboks won an epic final over New Zealand, Mandela presented the trophy to captain Francois Pienaar, an Afrikaner, wearing a Springbok shirt with Pienaar's own number 6 on the back. This was widely seen as a major step in the reconciliation of white and black South Africans.[79]
After assuming the presidency, one of Mandela's trademarks was his use of Batik shirts, known as "Madiba shirts", even on formal occasions.[80] In South Africa's first post-apartheid military operation, Mandela ordered troops into Lesotho in September 1998 to protect the government of Prime Minister Pakalitha Mosisili. This came after a disputed election prompted fierce opposition threatening the unstable government.[81] Commentators and critics including AIDS activists such as Edwin Cameron have criticised Mandela for his government's ineffectiveness in stemming the AIDS crisis.[82][83] After his retirement, Mandela admitted that he may have failed his country by not paying more attention to the HIV/AIDS epidemic.[84][85] Mandela has since spoken out on several occasions against the AIDS epidemic
