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SOWETO – She visits hospital daily, comforts relatives and faces an army of reporters clamouring for comment – with Nelson Mandela possibly on his last, his colourful and controversial ex-wife Winnie is back in the limelight. Since the anti-apartheid hero was admitted to intensive care three weeks ago, his former spouse’s black luxury German sedan has rolled through the guarded gates each day at the heart clinic in Pretoria where Mandela lies.
Just like she did 50 years ago when he was preparing for his treason trial, Winnie has been visiting the man to whom she was married for almost four decades to give moral support.
While the revered leader’s current wife Graça Machel keeps a constant vigil at his bedside, it is Winnie once again who has become the public face of the Mandela family.
Her increased profile has helped to polish the image of the woman who was once an outspoken thorn in the side of the racist white minority regime, but who later became tainted by scandal.
“In recent years Winnie Mandela’s political star and profile has waned because of these scandals,” said Professor Adam Habib, vice chancellor of Wits University in Johannesburg.
“But since Madiba fell ill, her behaviour has been exemplary and dignified,” he told AFP.
After Mandela’s daughter recently launched an angry tirade against foreign media camped outside the hospital, comparing them to “vultures waiting when a lion has devoured a buffalo”, Winnie appeared before the press pack to smooth ruffled feathers.
“There may be problems here and there and some of you got carried away with the reports and talk about our father in the past tense – we are just here to thank you very much for your support,” she said.
She also criticised a visit by South African President Jacob Zuma and other ruling party figures in April to the home of Mandela, who was shown in television footage frail and dazed, sitting in an armchair. — News24.
Online Reporter