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.

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.

Bush reacted favourably to the proposal, as did President François Mitterrand of France and King Juan Carlos I of Spain.

[7] In November 1994 – six months after his election as president – Mandela formally proposed that South Africa should be the venue for the Pan Am Flight 103 bombing trial.

Later during the same year, at the 1997 Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) at Edinburgh in October 1997, Mandela warned:"No one nation should be complainant, prosecutor and judge.

A compromise solution was then agreed for a trial to be held at Camp Zeist in the Netherlands, governed by Scots law, and President Mandela began negotiations with Colonel Gaddafi for the handover of the two accused (Megrahi and Fhimah) in April 1999.

Mandela did not attempt to have the document amended to remove the two-term limit; indeed, he had only intended to serve one term, age being a strong factor in this decision.

Mandela's presidential legacy largely constitutes his successful efforts to foster reconciliations between the Afrikaner and Black South African population post-Apartheid.