Thabo Mbeki was sworn in for a second term as president of South Africa Tuesday amidst celebrations marking a decade of democracy, report agencies.
April 27 is celebrated as "Freedom Day", symbolising the end of apartheid and the beginning of multi-racial democracy.
President Mbeki's African National Congress (ANC) won a landslide victory in the April 14 elections, and he was sworn in to serve his second and final term.
"Today we begin our second decade of democracy. We are convinced that what has been achieved during the first demonstrates that as Africans we can and will solve our problems. Having served as the prime example of human despair, Africa is certain to emerge as a place of human hope," he declared after taking the oath in several African languages.
Mbeki, 61, is the nation's second black president after Nelson Mandela, who was sworn in at the same amphitheatre in Union Buildings, Pretoria, 10 years ago.