<Tr> <Th> Nickname (s) </Th> <Td> <Ul> <Li> Madiba </Li> <Li> Dalibunga </Li> </Ul> </Td> </Tr> <Ul> <Li> Madiba </Li> <Li> Dalibunga </Li> </Ul> <P> Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela (/ mænˈdɛlə /; 18 July 1918--5 December 2013) was a South African anti-apartheid revolutionary, political leader, and philanthropist, who served as President of South Africa from 1994 to 1999 . He was the country's first black head of state and the first elected in a fully representative democratic election . His government focused on dismantling the legacy of apartheid by tackling institutionalised racism and fostering racial reconciliation . Ideologically an African nationalist and socialist, he served as President of the African National Congress (ANC) party from 1991 to 1997 . </P> <P> A Xhosa, Mandela was born in Mvezo to the Thembu royal family . He studied law at the University of Fort Hare and the University of the Witwatersrand before working as a lawyer in Johannesburg . There he became involved in anti-colonial and African nationalist politics, joining the ANC in 1943 and co-founding its Youth League in 1944 . After the National Party's white - only government established apartheid, a system of racial segregation that privileged whites, he and the ANC committed themselves to its overthrow . Mandela was appointed President of the ANC's Transvaal branch, rising to prominence for his involvement in the 1952 Defiance Campaign and the 1955 Congress of the People . He was repeatedly arrested for seditious activities and was unsuccessfully prosecuted in the 1956 Treason Trial . Influenced by Marxism, he secretly joined the banned South African Communist Party (SACP). Although initially committed to non-violent protest, in association with the SACP he co-founded the militant Umkhonto we Sizwe in 1961 and led a sabotage campaign against the government . In 1962, he was arrested for conspiring to overthrow the state and sentenced to life imprisonment in the Rivonia Trial . </P>

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