I'm South African and this is how it went about near my area.

When Mandela was finally elected many of my white and Afrikaans friends had the idea that an all out revenge war would happen and that the country would fail. They started to immigrate to places like Australia and the UK. There was a lot of tension between all the races in general. Many others such as myself stayed here in hope that all the races could live in peace together. It was awkward for some White South Africans at first as some still had the apartheid beliefs. These people would refuse to be served by non-white waiters (you get the idea). But as time went on we got used to each other. One of the biggest bonding moments for South Africans was our 1995 Rugby World Cup Victory. Mandela holding the trophy was an inspiration for us all and a big helping factor in achieving stability in the nation.

Even today there are still some tensions between White and Black people here today but we have progressed far as a nation in 20 years and things will hopefully continue to improve!

To sum things up, It was no where close to a civil war at least from where I was. It was full of tension but Mandela was a great leader and him and F.W De Klerk did great in ensuring a non violent state after apartheid.

If you have any other questions feel free to ask!

The answer, in brief, is very close. In fact, the general consensus running up to the 1994 elections was that mass violence was imminent. The negotiations to establish a new constitution and run free election were incredibly tense, although both Mandela and de Klerk were able to reign in their respective sides. The biggest danger lay in potential spoilers on both the white and black sides. For the Afrikaaners, it was the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging (AWB) a radical white-supremacist group led by Eugene Terre'Blanche. At the same time, tensions between the ANC and the Zulu-nationalist Inkatha Freedom Party, led by Mangosuthu Buthelezi, were rising and often turning into bloodshed, especially in kwaZulu-Natal. Negotiations between the ANC and the government broke down after the 1992 Boipatong Massacre, orchestrated by the IFP (who refused to participate in negotiations), with the tacit support of pro-Apartheid forces.

One of the most tense moments came when the AWB invaded the Kempton Park World Trade Centre, where negotiations were being held in 1993. The incident was eventually resolved peaceful, but the AWB continued their spoiler campaign in 1994 with a coup d'etat in Bophuthatswana in support of the Bantustan's government. That coup failed and led to a demoralization amongst the hard-right militias.

It's also important to note that the AWB and IFP often worked together to undermine the more moderate forces attempting to negotiate the end of Apartheid.

So yes, civil war was narrowly avoided. The world's press corps descended on South Africa in April 1994 expecting a bloodbath. Luckily that didn't materialize. Unfortunately, because all eyes were on SA, the African bureaus of every major media organization missed the Rwandan genocide, which began to unfold the same month (but that's a different story).