Apartheid and the stripping of the right to vote from Indian and mixed-race voters were in part a National Party strategy to ensure it would win all future elections.

It was reported that he slept each night aboard a former British warship anchored in the Yangtze River. In the event of an uprising in the capital, he could make a quick getaway.

Dory Chamoun, who heads Lebanon's National Liberal Party, an ally of Hariri, says that the election appears trouble-free and that he thinks the Pro-Western alliance has a slight edge.