Nelson Mandela, the world's best-loved statesman, will celebrate his 90th birthday today with a private ceremony in the humble rural homestead where he was born and once herded cattle.

In contrast to last month's birthday concert in Hyde Park, the world's cameras and reporters will be kept away from the event in the tiny village of Qunu in the Eastern Cape where Mr Mandela, known by his clan name Madiba, and his family are regarded as royalty.

Close family members say that they are planning a surprise. Ndileka Mandela, one of his granddaughters, said: “We don't want to give too much away as it would be like knowing what's in a present before opening it. For him it is a special day, but it is for all of us too.”

Although the family emphasises that it is a private event, there will be more than 500 guests at a follow-up party in the village on Saturday - just one of several events that have celebrated his birthday over the past few weeks. Limited editions of coins and stamps bearing his image have also been released to raise money for his Aids and children's charities.

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The country that Mr Mandela led to democracy in 1994 has put on a rare show of unity to toast its favourite son, but it has been unable to paper over the deep problems it currently faces, from bitter divisions within the ruling African National Congress (ANC) to a power crisis and the emigration of record numbers of disillusioned skilled whites.

Pages of local newspapers have been dedicated to stories about Mr Mandela's life, highlighting a period of reconciliation and optimism that many now hanker for. Public radio has held near-constant tributes and readings from his autobiography, Long Walk to Freedom, which describes his 27 years in captivity and long struggle against white minority rule.

Mr Mandela, who officially withdrew from public life several years ago, still towers above the country's other politicians, particularly President Mbeki, who has outraged international opinion with his denial of the link between HIV and Aids and his near-total silence on Zimbabwe.

Mr Mbeki will stand down next year, but his likely successor, the current ANC president Jacob Zuma, faces corruption and racketeering charges that, in the opinion of many people, have left him unsuitable to follow Mr Mandela as the country's third black President.

Such is Madiba's moral authority that last month, with just five words regretting the events in neighbouring Zimbabwe, he did more to restore Africa's tarnished image over its approach to Robert Mugabe's tyranny than other leaders have managed in years of failed diplomacy. He also did so without jeopardising his country's mediating role.

The intervention left many wishing that he would abandon his retirement and take a more active role in contemporary political life. He remains the only South African politician able to transcend class, race and economic divisions and bring people together in a country that remains deeply fractured 14 years after the end of apartheid.

“I think we should all be ashamed of what we have become since he's had to withdraw from public life,” wrote the influential Afrikaner columnist Max du Preez.

Tributes to a statesman

‘He is simply a wonderful husband’ Mandela’s third wife Graça Machel

‘He is an impossible act to follow. Whoever has had to could only be himself and not try to emulate Madiba. We are feeling a little rudderless’ Archbishop Desmond Tutu

‘He is a very special man . . . and he’s a darn difficult thing to measure up to’ Helen Suzman, veteran anti-apartheid campaigner

‘You know, he says when he dies he’s going to join the nearest branch of the ANC in Heaven’ George Bizos, human rights lawyer

‘Growing up with him . . . it’s taught us to be humble, taught us to take people for who they are — not their colour or how much money they have, but what they say and what they live their life by’ Kweku, 23-year-old grandson

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