Mandela centenary fete sucked into ANC rows

JOHANNESBURG, Wednesday

A centenary lecture to honour South Africa’s Nelson Mandela has been thrown into confusion after it was sucked into African National Congress (ANC) wrangles.

While it was meant to be a proud moment in which members of South Africa’s liberation movement honour its most famous son, wrangles within ANC clouded the lecture delivered by President Jacob Zuma to celebrate the life and times of Mr Mandela.

The event was part of year-long events to mark the 100th anniversary of the formation of a party that the soon-to-be 94-year-old statesman served as its 10th president.

Mr Mandela celebrates his 94th birthday on July 18.

The controversial side-shows were triggered by media reports early on Wednesday that the anti-apartheid icon’s former wife, Winnie-Madikizela-Mandela, had written to the ANC accusing its current leaders of disrespecting the Mandela family and subjecting them to “the most shabby treatment throughout the years”.

Responding to a request from the ANC spokesman Jackson Mthembu for the party leadership to meet with their former leader’s family on July 5 to discuss the centenary celebrations, Ms Madikizela-Mandela is reported to have rejected the request.

She instead accused the ANC leadership of not caring for the Mandela family and showing that it only matters “when we have to be used for some agenda”.

On Wednesday, the ANC swept the revelations under the carpet and declined to comment choosing instead to proceeded with the lecture, which was boycotted by some members of Mr Mandela’s family.

Only Mandela’s wife Graca Machel and his granddaughter Ndileka Mandela, who delivered a message from her grandfather, were in attendance at the event that took place in the Limpopo Province.

But by the time Mr Zuma made the call to unity, at least eight supporters of expelled ANC Youth League president Julius Malema had already been arrested outside the venue of the lecture for allegedly disrupting the meeting.