The Independent Uganda: You get the Truth we Pay the Price
– Revered in old age –
During her old age, she re-emerged as a respected elder who was feted as a living reminder of the late Mandela and of the long campaign against apartheid.
Just last month, she was shown in television footage joking with Cyril Ramaphosa, the newly-appointed president who paid a courtesy call to her home in Soweto, the township where she lived for decades.
Dressed in full ANC colours of yellow, black and green, she asked Ramaphosa, who is known for his morning runs, “Why don’t you get tired?”
“We can’t get tired when you have given us work to do‚” Ramaphosa said, paying fulsome praise to her appearance.
She had also expressed support for the current leadership of the ANC party — which her husband led to power in the euphoric post-apartheid elections of 1994.
The SABC state broadcaster said she had attended church in Soweto on Easter Friday before being admitted to hospital complaining of flu. She had also suffered from diabetes for some years.
Suggestions that Winnie remained extremely close to Nelson Mandela in his final years were fuelled in a recent book by his doctor.
Vejay Ramlakan wrote that Winnie — not Mandela’s widow Graca Machel — was with Mandela when he died in 2013. The book was withdrawn by its publishers under pressure from Mandela’s family.
