Alf Widman: Joburg mayor who waged a war against drugs
1921-2013
ALFWidman, who has died at the age of 92, was a well-known Johannesburg city councillor and mayor who frequented the city’s bars and nightclubs in the 1960s dressed variously as a hippie or Hells Angel to investigate its drug culture.
Widman was accompanied on his forays by Chris Day and Mervyn Rees, the municipal and crime reporters respectively of the Rand Daily Mail, who later became famous for their part in exposing the Information scandal, which brought down the government of John Vorster.
Widman and his accomplices mingled with some extremely rough characters in their quest to explore the drug trade and had to make several hasty retreats when their covers looked like they would be blown.
On one occasion, when Widman gave the police some drugs he had bought to show how easy it was to get drugs, he was given a stiff warning about breaking the law.
But as a result of his investigations, steps were taken which certainly curtailed, even if they did not quite end, what had been a growing drug culture in the city.
Long before it was fashionable, Widman led a campaign against smoking in public spaces. Thanks to him, Johannesburg was the first South African city to ban smoking in cinemas.
Widman was born on June 25 1921 in Cape Town. He matriculated from Dur- ban High School and read law at the University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg.
He fought in World War 2, becoming a captain in the Royal Fusiliers and seeing action in North Africa and Italy. He was saved from injury when a bullet hit a compass hanging from his belt.
After the war, he started a legal practice as an attorney, before becoming a Johannesburg city councillor for the United Party in the late 1950s and mayor in 1971. He was on the council’s management committee for many years.
In 1969, he was forced to apologise to the legendary Helen Suzman, then the Progressive Party’s lone MP, after launching what the Sunday Times called an “extraordinary attack” on her for a speech she made to students at the University of the Witwatersrand during anti-apartheid protest marches in the city.
Where there was trouble, Suzman could “always be relied on to stir up more”, he said. “You can always rely on her to rub South Africans’ noses in the dirt wherever she can.”
For many years Widman and fellow UP councillor Francois “Obie” Oberholzer were the two most powerful men in the city. They were both ambitious and pursued a famous, noholds-barred rivalry for leadership of the all-powerful management committee. But during some of their most ferocious battles Oberholzer’s lawyer son was articled to Widman.
When the UP lost its majority after splitting in 1975, Oberholzer formed an alliance with the National Party, which gave him control of Johannesburg for the next 10 years.
After his mayoral term ended, Widman became leader of the UP in the Transvaal provincial council. In 1975 he joined his close friend Harry Schwarz in founding the Reform Party, which quickly merged with the Progressive Party.
In 1977, Widman was elected Progressive Federal Party MP for Hillbrow. He lost his seat by 100 votes in 1987, but took his opponent, Nat MP Leon de Beer, to court for cheating. De Beer was jailed, but by then Widman had retired from politics.
Widman, who practised as an attorney until the age of 91 — life would have no point if he did not go into the office every day, he said — is survived by his daughter, Myrisse Segell.
His wife, Becks, whom he married in 1948 and who kept the books for his firm, died in 2007 at the age of 82.
Their son, Johnny, died at 52 of a heart attack while playing tennis with three heart specialists in California in 2005. — Chris Barron