Book excerpt: The report of the Commonwealth Observer Mission for South Africa’s national and provincial elections held on 7 May 2014. The mission was chaired by Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, the former foreign minister and attorney-general of Ghana, and was comprised of 3 members in total. These were significant elections as they were the first elections in which ‘born frees’ (those born in or after 1994) could vote and the first to be held since the passing of Nelson Mandela. The Commonwealth Observer Mission found that the elections were credible and the exemplary conduct of all political parties in accepting the outcome of the results bares testimony to the maturity of democracy in South Africa.