The presidency of Nelson Mandela began on 10 May 1994, when Nelson Mandela, an anti-apartheid activist, leader of Umkhonto We Sizwe, lawyer, and former political prisoner, was inaugurated as President of South Africa, and ended on 14 June 1999. He was the first non-White head of state in the history of South Africa, taking office at the age of 75. His age was taken into consideration as part of his decision to not seek re-election in 1999. Election The 1994 general election, held on 27 April, was South Africa's first multi-racial election with full enfranchisement. The African National Congress won a 63 percent share of the vote at 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 F.W. de Klerk as his first deputy and Thabo Mbeki as the second in the Government of National Unity. 1995 When Mandela began his term on 10 May 1994, he presided over the transition from minority rule and apartheid, winning international respect for his advocacy of national and international reconciliation. 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. (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. 1996 In 1996, Mandela divorced his estranged wife, Winnie Madikizela-Mandela. Thabo Mbeki became the sole deputy president of South Africa in June as a result of F. W. de Klerk's resignation from joint office. In July that year, Mandela confirmed that he would not be seeking re-election to the presidency in 1999. 1997 Lockerbie trial President Mandela took a particular interest in helping to resolve the long-running dispute between Gaddafi's Libya, on one hand, and the United States and UK on the other, over bringing to trial the two Libyans who were indicted in November 1991, and accused of bombing Pan Am Flight 103, which subsequently broke apart and fell to and near Lockerbie, Scotland, UK on 21 December 1988, with the loss of 270 lives. As early as 1992, Mandela informally