Mandela well enough to travel, South Africa says

By the CNN Wire Staff

Nelson Mandela casts his vote for South African local elections in his Houghton, Johannesburg home on Monday, May 16.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

The anti-apartheid icon was not able to get to a polling station earlier this month
He was rushed into a hospital for pneumonia earlier this year
He is "well enough to travel," President Jacob Zuma says

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(CNN) -- Former South African President Nelson Mandela is "resting at his home" in Qunu, Eastern Cape, South Africa announced Monday, amid concerns that his health is in decline.

Mandela, 92, "is now well enough to travel," President Jacob Zuma said in a statement.

The anti-apartheid icon was not well enough to vote at a polling station in a local election in Johannesburg earlier this month and cast his ballot from home.

The Nobel Laureate no longer makes public appearances and has not been seen in public since the final of the FIFA World Cup in Johannesburg on July 11.

Earlier this year, concerns over Mandela's health flared after he was rushed from Cape Town and admitted to a Johannesburg hospital with pnemonia.

Since the health scare, neither the South African government, the Mandela family or the Mandela Foundation has released specific information on his health, saying it is a private matter.

The government reiterated the message on Monday, thanking "the public and the media for granting him privacy in the last three months, and we urge them to continue to do so."

Mandela spent 27 years in prison under the white-dominated South African apartheid regime, finally walking free from Robben Island in 1990.

He and South Africa's then-President F. W. de Klerk shared the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993, and Mandela was elected president a year later. He served one term and stepped down in 1999.

CNN's Nkepile Mabuse and Kim Norgaard contributed to this report.