Ex-wife Winnie left out of Mandela’s testament

Nelson Mandela’s former wife Winnie Madikizela Mandela (left) and widow Graca Machel attend his memorial service in Johannesburg last December. PHOTO | FILE 

By The Citizen Reporter and Agencies

Johannesburg. Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, who was
married to Nelson Mandela for 38 years, has been left out of the late anti-apartheid icon’s will.

South Africa’s popular online newspaper, the Daily Maverick, said Winnie, who was divorced from Mandela in 1996, did not get anything from the will of South Africa’s first democratically elected president.

“Although Winnie was regularly around Mandela in the later years of his life, and had a prominent place at family events, he did not leave her anything,” it said.

“This is likely to infuriate Winnie, who resents not being acknowledged for her role in supporting Mandela and keeping his legacy alive during his imprisonment…and yet, in his final act from the grave, Mandela let Winnie go.”

In his will, Mandela named his widow, Graça Machel, and his two daughters, Makaziwe and Zenani, as the familiy’s representatives in making important decisions on the family’s needs.

Winnie, Mandela’s second wife, suggested in a recent statement that Makaziwe should run family affairs in concert with her own two daughters, Zenani and Zindzi, earning the wrath of the AbaThembu royal house to which Mandela belonged.

Questions that linger in the minds of many analysts following the release of the will are: Why did Mandela, who earned worldwide respect as a man who harboured no resentment, not fogive Winnie? Why did he exclude her from his will? What will be Winnie’s reaction?

“If Madiba was able to forgive the apartheid lords who jailed him for 27 years, why didn’t he do the same to his second wife?” one analyst wondered.

On Monday, South Africa’s Deputy Chief Justice Dikgang Moseneke read out to the media excerpts from Mandela’s will, which spelt out the devolution of his estate to his family, staff and education institutions.

Mandela executed the will on October 12, 2004, a few months after announcing his retirement from public life at the age of 85. Three months earlier, he had flown to Bangkok to speak at the 15th International Aids Conference. He was therefore able to declare in the document that he was “in health of body and of sound and disposing mind, memory and understanding, and capable of doing any act that requires thought, judgment and reflection”.

Anyone wanting to contest the will has to challenge that particular declaration and argue that Mandela was not of sound mind when he drew up the will. But an appraisal of the executive summary released by the executors reveals that Mandela thought hard about what he wanted to leave to whom from his estimated 46 million rand (Sh9.2 billion) estate.

According to the Daily Maverick, there are also insights into his line of thought in terms of how the estate is disbursed. Mandela’s love and respect for Graca Machel, who kept vigil by his bedside as his health deteriorated, is evident in the will.