Domestic policies rather than foreign affairs dominated the June 1999 elections in South Africa but internal relations will have a direct bearing on the ability of the new government of Thabo Mbeki to deliver its electoral pledges. The priority of the second post-apartheid administration will be to foster a dynamic economy to provide jobs, welfare, security and sustainable development for its entire people. But South Africa is dependent on and vulnerable to the vagaries of global economic relations. The author traces the evolution of the African National Congress's international stance from its founding in 1912 to the 1994 elections and examines the foreign policy positions open to the Mbeki administration. He suggests that while South Africa will remain a symbol of the Third World struggle for liberation, human rights and global economic justice, Mbeki will be in a better position to determine policies by rational assessment than his distinguished predecessor. Mbeki's African Renaissance can be seen as a grand design to re-invent South Africa as a global trading state with strong regional and continental interests.