Hamba kahle, Ma Winnie September 26, 1936 - April 2, 2018

WINNIE Madikizela-Mandela, aged 81, died yesterday, a Mandela family spokesperson confirmed.

The politician and anti-apartheid activist died at the Netcare Milpark Hospital, Johannesburg, after a long illness, for which she had been in and out of hospital since the start of the year, Victor Dlamini said in a statement.

“She succumbed peacefully in the early hours of Monday afternoon surrounded by her family and loved ones.”

Madikizela-Mandela’s last public appearance was in March when she participated in a voter registration weekend with President Cyril Ramaphosa.

Affectionately known as “Mother of the Nation”, Madikizela-Mandela came a long way since being banished to the little town of Brandfort in the Free State.

In the worst years of apartheid, she was repeatedly detained, jailed and banished, and spent most of her married life without her then husband late former president Nelson Mandela.

But she survived – weathering a string of controversies that would have snuffed out the political career of a lesser person.

Nomzamo Nobandla Winnifred Madikizela was born in Bizana, Pondoland, on September 26, 1936.

Her mother Nomathamsanqa Mzaidume, a domestic science teacher, died when Winnie was eight.

Her father became minister of forestry and agriculture of the Transkei government during the rule of Kaizer Matanzima.

Madikizela-Mandela attended high school at Shawbury before completing a social work diploma at the Jan Hofmeyer School in Johannesburg.

This was followed by a BA with an International Relations major at the University of the Witwatersrand.

While working as the first black medical social worker at Baragwanath Hospital, exposed to the abject poverty under which most people were forced to live, she started to become politicised.

She was first detained in 1958 for her role in the anti-pass campaign, and in the same year married Nelson Mandela, a member of the African National Congress’ national executive.

At the time, she served on the national executive of the ANC Women’s League, and chaired the Orlando West branch of the ANC.

Her first banning order in 1962 restricted her to Soweto.

Five years later, she was arrested in Cape Town on a visit to her husband. She spent one month in the Johannesburg prison known as the Fort.

Mandela had been jailed in 1962, initially for five years for inciting blacks to strike, and subsequently for life after being convicted of sabotage and conspiracy to overthrow the government.

In 1969, Winnie became one of the first detainees under Section 6 of the notorious Terrorism Act.

She was kept in solitary confinement for 18 months in the condemned cell at Pretoria Central before being charged – and eventually found not guilty – under the Suppression of Communism Act.

Her banning order expired in 1975, and was reimposed in December 1976.

In 1976, following her activities during the uprising by school children protesting the introduction of Afrikaans as the language of instruction, Madikizela-Mandela was detained for six months at the Fort.

In May 1977, she was banished to Brandfort in the Free State.

Here her house was bombed twice and in 1985 she was arrested for defying her restriction order and returning to Johannesburg.

Her autobiography, Part of My Soul Went With Him, was published in 1980.

In April 1986, she reportedly told a meeting in Munsieville that black people would liberate the country by means of matches and necklaces – executions carried out with a burning tyre.

She claimed afterwards she had been quoted out of context.

In May 1991, she was sentenced to an effective six years’ jail after being convicted of kidnapping and being an accessory to assault.

In court, she claimed she was not present at her Orlando West, Soweto home in December 1988 when 14-year-old activist Stompie Seipei and three other youngsters were detained at her home and severely beaten.

Stompie later died. The judge found she had authorised his kidnapping.

In June 1993, her appeal against the kidnapping conviction in the Seipei case was dismissed, but she was given the option of paying a R15 000 fine instead of going to jail. An appeal against the accessory conviction was successful.

In October 2001, Madikizela-Mandela was released on bail of R5 000 after appearing in the Commercial Crime Court in Pretoria, on 60 charges of fraud and 25 of theft totalling almost R1 million.

She and her co-accused and financial adviser, Addy Moolman, were allegedly involved in a scam involving the use of her signature to fraudulently obtain personal loans for fictitious ANCWL employees from Saambou Bank and brokerage firm Imstud.

On April 25, 2003 she was sentenced to five years in jail.

She then announced her resignation as a Member of Parliament (MP), ANCWL president, member of the ANC’s national executive committee, and from attendant positions in the party.

After appealing to the high court in Pretoria, her jail sentence was wholly suspended.

In 2002, Parliament’s ethics committee found her guilty of contravening Parliament’s Code of Conduct for failing to disclose donations of R50 000 a month, as well as her financial interests in the Winnie Mandela Family Museum.

She was the first MP to be found guilty under the code.

In April 2003, the then Cape High Court dismissed with costs her bid to stop National Assembly Speaker Frene Ginwala from publicly reprimanding her for this and imposing a 15-day salary fine on her.

As a sign of her continuing popularity, at the ANC’s Polokwane conference in December 2007, she was elected to the top of the party’s national executive committee list.

Despite objections from opposition parties that her criminal record disqualified her from running for a seat in the National Assembly, she was made a MP following general elections in April 2009.

Ma-Afrika Films announced in November 2009 that Oscar winner Jennifer Hudson would star as Winnie Mandela in a film to be made in 2010 in South Africa.

Madikizela-Mandela landed in hospital twice in 2011 – first for a foot operation in September and then to be treated for a diabetes condition in November.

In June 2012, she was again hospitalised after breaking her wrist in a fall.

A year later the former first lady was seen at the military hospital in Pretoria where her ex-husband was being treated. He died in December, 2013.

Madikizela-Mandela underwent another surgery in hospital in October 2014, but it was not disclosed what the procedure was. Two years later Madikizela-Mandela spent several weeks in hospital following back surgery.

She reportedly fell ill before judgment was handed down in the high court in Mthatha for her claim on her former husband’s Qunu house. Her claim was dismissed.

The following year, in October 2017, Madikizela-Mandela had a short stay in a hospital after a minor surgery.

In January 2018, just days after her Supreme Court of Appeal bid to lay claim to the Qunu house was refused, she was once again hospitalised after complaining of pain in one of her legs as well as about a loss of appetite.

Upon admission, it was revealed that she had an infection which affected her kidneys.

Madikizela-Mandela is survived by her two daughters, Zindziswa Mandela-Hlongwane and Zenani Mandela.

– ANA