The Most Famous

POLITICIANS from South Africa

This page contains a list of the greatest South African Politicians. The pantheon dataset contains 19,576 Politicians, 57 of which were born in South Africa. This makes South Africa the birth place of the 52nd most number of Politicians behind Lithuania, and Thailand.

Top 10

The following people are considered by Pantheon to be the top 10 most legendary South African Politicians of all time. This list of famous South African Politicians is sorted by HPI (Historical Popularity Index), a metric that aggregates information on a biography’s online popularity. Visit the rankings page to view the entire list of South African Politicians.

1. F. W. de Klerk (1936 - 2021)

With an HPI of 69.24, F. W. de Klerk is the most famous South African Politician. His biography has been translated into 80 different languages on wikipedia.

Frederik Willem de Klerk ( də-KLURK, də-KLAIRK, Afrikaans: [ˈfriədərək ˈvələm də ˈklɛrk]; 18 March 1936 – 11 November 2021) was a South African politician who served as state president of South Africa from 1989 to 1994 and as deputy president from 1994 to 1996. As South Africa's last head of state from the era of white-minority rule, he and his government dismantled the apartheid system and introduced universal suffrage. Ideologically a social conservative and an economic liberal, he led the National Party (NP) from 1989 to 1997. Born in Johannesburg to an influential Afrikaner family, de Klerk studied at Potchefstroom University before pursuing a career in law. Joining the NP, to which he had family ties, he was elected to parliament and sat in the white-minority government of P. W. Botha, holding a succession of ministerial posts. As a minister, he supported and enforced apartheid, a system of racial segregation that privileged white South Africans. After Botha resigned in 1989, de Klerk replaced him, first as leader of the NP and then as State President. Although observers expected him to continue Botha's defence of apartheid, de Klerk decided to end the policy. He was aware that growing ethnic animosity and violence was leading South Africa into a racial civil war. Amid this violence, the state security forces committed widespread human rights abuses and encouraged violence between the Xhosa and Zulu people, although de Klerk later denied sanctioning such actions. He permitted anti-apartheid marches to take place, legalised a range of previously banned anti-apartheid political parties, and freed imprisoned anti-apartheid activists such as Nelson Mandela. He also dismantled South Africa's nuclear weapons program. De Klerk negotiated with Mandela to fully dismantle apartheid and establish a transition to universal suffrage. In 1993, he publicly apologised for apartheid's harmful effects. He oversaw the 1994 non-racial election in which Mandela led the African National Congress (ANC) to victory; de Klerk's NP took second place. De Klerk then became Deputy President in Mandela's ANC-led coalition, the Government of National Unity. In this position, he supported the government's continued liberal economic policies but opposed the Truth and Reconciliation Commission set up to investigate past human rights abuses because he wanted total amnesty for political crimes. His working relationship with Mandela was strained, although he later spoke fondly of him. In May 1996, after the NP objected to the new constitution, de Klerk withdrew it from the coalition government; the party disbanded the following year and reformed as the New National Party. In 1997, he retired from active politics and thereafter lectured internationally. De Klerk was a controversial figure among many sections of South African society. He received many awards, including the Nobel Peace Prize (shared with Mandela) for his role in dismantling apartheid and bringing universal suffrage to South Africa. Conversely, he received criticism from anti-apartheid activists for offering only a qualified apology for apartheid, and for ignoring the human rights abuses by state security forces. He was also condemned by pro-apartheid Afrikaners, who contended that by abandoning apartheid, he betrayed the interests of the country's Afrikaner minority.

2. Shaka (1787 - 1828)

With an HPI of 67.94, Shaka is the 2nd most famous South African Politician. His biography has been translated into 91 different languages.

Shaka kaSenzangakhona (c. 1787–24 September 1828), also known as Shaka Zulu (Zulu pronunciation: [ˈʃaːɠa]) and Sigidi kaSenzangakhona, was the king of the Zulu Kingdom from 1816 to 1828. One of the most influential monarchs of the Zulu, he ordered wide-reaching reforms that reorganized the military into a formidable force. King Shaka was born in the lunar month of uNtulikazi (July) in the year 1787, in Mthonjaneni, KwaZulu-Natal Province, South Africa. The son of the Zulu King Senzankakhona kaJama, he was spurned as an illegitimate son. Shaka spent part of his childhood in his mother's settlements, where he was initiated into an ibutho lempi (fighting unit/regiment), serving as a warrior under Inkosi Dingiswayo. King Shaka further refined the ibutho military system with the Mthethwa Paramountcy's support over the next several years. He forged alliances with his smaller neighbours to counter Ndwandwe raids from the north. The initial Zulu maneuvers were primarily defensive, as King Shaka preferred to apply pressure diplomatically, with an occasional strategic assassination. His reforms of local society built on existing structures. Although he preferred social and propagandistic political methods, he also engaged in a number of battles. King Shaka's reign coincided with the start of the Mfecane/Difaqane ("upheaval" or "crushing"), a period of devastating warfare and chaos in southern Africa between 1815 and 1840 that depopulated the region. His role in the Mfecane/Difaqane is highly controversial. He was ultimately assassinated by his half-brothers, King Dingane and Prince Mhlangana and Mbopha kaSithayi.

3. Cyril Ramaphosa (b. 1952)

With an HPI of 65.12, Cyril Ramaphosa is the 3rd most famous South African Politician. His biography has been translated into 84 different languages.

Matamela Cyril Ramaphosa (born 17 November 1952) is a South African businessman and politician serving as the 5th and current president of South Africa since 2018. A former anti-apartheid activist and trade union leader, Ramaphosa is also the president (leader) of the African National Congress (ANC). Ramaphosa rose to national prominence as secretary general of South Africa's biggest and most powerful trade union, the National Union of Mineworkers. In 1991, he was elected ANC secretary general under ANC president Nelson Mandela and became the ANC's chief negotiator during the negotiations that ended apartheid. He was elected chairperson of the Constitutional Assembly after the country's first fully democratic elections in 1994 and some observers believed that he was Mandela's preferred successor. However, Ramaphosa resigned from politics in 1996 and became well known as a businessman, including as an owner of McDonald's South Africa, chair of the board for MTN, member of the board for Lonmin, and founder of the Shanduka Group. Ramaphosa returned to politics in December 2012 at the ANC's 53rd National Conference and served as the deputy president of South Africa under President Jacob Zuma from 2014 to 2018. He was also chairman of the National Planning Commission. At the ANC's 54th National Conference on 18 December 2017, he was elected president of the ANC. Two months later, the day after Zuma resigned on 14 February 2018, the National Assembly (NA) elected Ramaphosa as president of South Africa. He began his first full term as president in May 2019 following the ANC's victory in the 2019 general election. While president, Ramaphosa served as chairperson of the African Union from 2020 to 2021 and led South Africa's response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Ramaphosa's net worth was estimated at over R6.4 billion ($450 million) as of 2018. He has been criticised for his conduct and involvement in his business interests, including his harsh posture as a Lonmin director towards the Marikana miners' strike in the week ahead of the Marikana massacre. On 19 December 2022, it was announced that the ANC's 55th National Conference had elected Ramaphosa to a second term as president of the ANC. On 14 June 2024, the National Assembly of South Africa elected Ramaphosa to a second term as president of South Africa.

4. Jacob Zuma (b. 1942)

With an HPI of 63.51, Jacob Zuma is the 4th most famous South African Politician. His biography has been translated into 92 different languages.

Jacob Gedleyihlekisa Zuma (Zulu: [geɮʱejiɬeˈkisa ˈzʱuma]; born 12 April 1942) is a South African politician who served as the fourth president of South Africa from 2009 to 2018. He is also referred to by his initials JZ and clan names Nxamalala and Msholozi. Zuma was a former anti-apartheid activist, member of uMkhonto weSizwe, and president of the African National Congress (ANC) from 2007 to 2017. Zuma was born in the rural region of Nkandla, which is now part of the KwaZulu-Natal province and the centre of Zuma's support base. He joined the ANC at the age of 17 in 1959 and spent ten years in Robben Island Prison as a political prisoner. He went into exile in 1975 and was ultimately appointed head of the ANC's intelligence department. After the ANC was unbanned in 1990, he quickly rose through the party's national leadership and became deputy secretary general in 1991, national chairperson in 1994, and deputy president in 1997. He was the deputy president of South Africa from 1999 to 2005 under President Thabo Mbeki, Nelson Mandela's successor. Mbeki dismissed Zuma on 14 June 2005 after Zuma's financial adviser, Schabir Shaik, was convicted of making corrupt payments to Zuma in connection with the Arms Deal. Zuma was charged with corruption and was also acquitted on rape charges in the highly publicised 2006 trial. He managed to retain the support of a left-wing coalition inside the ANC, which allowed him to remove Mbeki as ANC president in December 2007 at the ANC's Polokwane elective conference. Zuma was elected president of South Africa in the 2009 general election and took office on 9 May. The criminal charges against him were formally withdrawn the same week. As president, he launched the R4-trillion National Infrastructure Plan and signed a controversial nuclear power deal with the Russian government, which was blocked by the Western Cape High Court in 2017. As a former member of the South African Communist Party, he increasingly relied on left-wing populist rhetoric, and in his 2017 State of the Nation address he announced a new policy of "radical economic transformation". Among the few policies implemented before the end of his presidency were land expropriation without compensation, free higher education, a series of attempted structural reforms in key sectors involving restrictions on foreign ownership, and more stringent black economic empowerment requirements. In the international arena, Zuma emphasised South-South cooperation and economic diplomacy. The admission of South Africa to the BRICS grouping has been described as a major triumph for Zuma, and he has been praised for his HIV/AIDS policy. Zuma's presidency was beset by controversy, especially during his second term. In 2014, the Public Protector found that Zuma had improperly benefited from state expenditure on upgrades to his Nkandla homestead, and in 2016, the Constitutional Court ruled that Zuma had failed to uphold the Constitution, leading to calls for his resignation and a failed impeachment attempt in the National Assembly. By early 2016, there were also widespread allegations, later investigated by the Zondo Commission, that the Gupta family had acquired immense corrupt influence over Zuma's administration, amounting to state capture. Several weeks after Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa was elected to succeed Zuma as ANC president in December 2017, the ANC National Executive Committee recalled Zuma. After a fifth vote of no confidence in Parliament, he resigned on 14 February 2018 and was replaced by Ramaphosa the next day. Shortly after his resignation, on 16 March 2018, the National Prosecuting Authority announced that it would reinstate corruption charges against Zuma in relation to the 1999 Arms Deal. He pleaded not guilty on 26 May 2021, but the trial was not scheduled to take place until early 2023. The trial has since been set for April 2025. In a separate matter, in June 2021, the Constitutional Court convicted Zuma of contempt of court for his failure to comply with a court order compelling his testimony before the Zondo Commission. He was sentenced to 15 months' imprisonment and was arrested on 7 July 2021 in Estcourt, KwaZulu-Natal. However, he was released on medical parole two months later on 5 September. The high court rescinded his parole on 15 December. The parole was declared unlawful by the Supreme Court of Appeal, but it allowed the Department of Correctional Services to consider whether to deduct the time spent under it from his sentence. On 11 August 2023, the Department of Correctional Services granted Zuma remission of his 15-month sentence.

5. Thabo Mbeki (b. 1942)

With an HPI of 63.28, Thabo Mbeki is the 5th most famous South African Politician. His biography has been translated into 88 different languages.

Thabo Mvuyelwa Mbeki (Xhosa: [tʰaɓɔ mbɛːkʼi]; born 18 June 1942) is a South African politician who served as the 2nd democratic president of South Africa from 14 June 1999 to 24 September 2008, when he resigned at the request of his party, the African National Congress (ANC). Before that, he was deputy president under Nelson Mandela from 1994 to 1999. The son of Govan Mbeki, a renowned ANC intellectual, Mbeki has been involved in ANC politics since 1956, when he joined the ANC Youth League, and has been a member of the party's National Executive Committee since 1975. Born in the Transkei, he left South Africa aged twenty to attend university in England, and spent almost three decades in exile abroad, until the ANC was unbanned in 1990. He rose through the organisation in its information and publicity section and as Oliver Tambo's protégé, but he was also an experienced diplomat, serving as the ANC's official representative in several of its African outposts. He was an early advocate for and leader of the diplomatic engagements which led to the negotiations to end apartheid. After South Africa's first democratic elections in 1994, he was appointed national deputy president. In subsequent years, it became apparent that he was Mandela's chosen successor, and he was elected unopposed as ANC president in 1997, enabling his rise to the presidency as the ANC's candidate in the 1999 elections. While deputy president, Mbeki had been regarded as a steward of the government's Growth, Employment and Redistribution policy, introduced in 1996, and as president he continued to subscribe to relatively conservative, market-friendly macroeconomic policies. During his presidency, South Africa experienced falling public debt, a narrowing budget deficit, and consistent, moderate economic growth. However, despite his retention of various social democratic programmes, and notable expansions to the black economic empowerment programme, critics often regarded Mbeki's economic policies as neoliberal, with insufficient consideration for developmental and redistributive objectives. On these grounds, Mbeki grew increasingly alienated from the left wing of the ANC, and from the leaders of the ANC's Tripartite Alliance partners, the Congress of South African Trade Unions, and South African Communist Party. It was these leftist elements which supported Jacob Zuma over Mbeki in the political rivalry that erupted after Mbeki removed the latter from his post as deputy president in 2005. As president, Mbeki had an apparent predilection for foreign policy and particularly for multilateralism. His Pan-Africanism and vision for an "African renaissance" are central parts of his political persona, and commentators suggest that he secured for South Africa a role in African and global politics that was disproportionate to the country's size and historical influence. He was the central architect of the New Partnership for Africa's Development and, as the inaugural chairperson of the African Union, spearheaded the introduction of the African Peer Review Mechanism. After the IBSA Dialogue Forum was launched in 2003, his government collaborated with India and Brazil to lobby for reforms at the United Nations, advocating for a stronger role for developing countries. Among South Africa's various peacekeeping commitments during his presidency, Mbeki was the primary mediator in the conflict between ZANU-PF and the Zimbabwean opposition in the 2000s. However, he was frequently criticised for his policy of "quiet diplomacy" in Zimbabwe, under which he refused to condemn Robert Mugabe's regime or institute sanctions against it. Also highly controversial worldwide was Mbeki's HIV/AIDS policy. His government did not introduce a national mother-to-child transmission prevention programme until 2002, when it was mandated by the Constitutional Court, nor did it make antiretroviral therapy available in the public healthcare system until late 2003. Subsequent studies have estimated that these delays caused hundreds of thousands of preventable deaths. Mbeki himself, like his Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, has been described as an AIDS denialist, "dissident," or sceptic. Although he did not explicitly deny the causal link between HIV and AIDS, he often posited a need to investigate alternate causes of and alternative treatments for AIDS, frequently suggesting that immunodeficiency was the indirect result of poverty. His political descent began at the ANC's Polokwane conference in December 2007, when he was replaced as ANC president by Zuma. His term as national president was not due to expire until June 2009, but, on 20 September 2008, he announced that he would resign at the request of the ANC National Executive Committee. The ANC's decision to "recall" Mbeki was understood to be linked to a high court judgement, handed down earlier that month, in which judge Chris Nicholson had alleged improper political interference in the National Prosecuting Authority and specifically in the corruption charges against Zuma. Nicholson's judgement was overturned by the Supreme Court of Appeal in January 2009, by which time Mbeki had been replaced as president by Kgalema Motlanthe.

6. Paul Kruger (1825 - 1904)

With an HPI of 62.78, Paul Kruger is the 6th most famous South African Politician. His biography has been translated into 44 different languages.

Stephanus Johannes Paulus Kruger (Afrikaans pronunciation: [ˈkry.(j)ər]; 10 October 1825 – 14 July 1904), better known as Paul Kruger, was a South African politician. He was one of the dominant political and military figures in 19th-century South Africa, and State President of the South African Republic (or Transvaal) from 1883 to 1900. Nicknamed Oom Paul ("Uncle Paul"), he came to international prominence as the face of the Boer cause—that of the Transvaal and its neighbour the Orange Free State—against Britain during the Second Boer War of 1899–1902. He has been called a personification of Afrikanerdom and admirers venerate him as a tragic folk hero. Born near the eastern edge of the Cape Colony, Kruger took part in the Great Trek as a child during the late 1830s. He had almost no education apart from the Bible. A protégé of the Voortrekker leader Andries Pretorius, he witnessed the signing of the Sand River Convention with Britain in 1852 and over the next decade played a prominent role in the forging of the South African Republic, leading its commandos and resolving disputes between the rival Boer leaders and factions. In 1863 he was elected Commandant-General, a post he held for a decade before he resigned soon after the election of President Thomas François Burgers. Kruger was appointed Vice President in March 1877, shortly before the South African Republic was annexed by Britain as the Transvaal. Over the next three years he headed two deputations to London to try to have this overturned. He became the leading figure in the movement to restore the South African Republic's independence, culminating in the Boers' victory in the First Boer War of 1880–1881. Kruger served until 1883 as a member of an executive triumvirate, then was elected President. In 1884 he headed a third deputation that brokered the London Convention, under which Britain recognised the South African Republic as a completely independent state. Following the influx of thousands of predominantly British settlers with the Witwatersrand Gold Rush of 1886, "uitlanders" (foreigners) provided almost all of the South African Republic's tax revenues but lacked civic representation; Boer burghers retained control of the government. The uitlander problem and the associated tensions with Britain dominated Kruger's attention for the rest of his presidency, to which he was re-elected in 1888, 1893 and 1898, and led to the Jameson Raid of 1895–1896 and ultimately the Second Boer War. Kruger left for Europe as the war turned against the Boers in 1900 and spent the rest of his life in exile, refusing to return home following the British victory. After he died in Switzerland at the age of 78 in 1904, his body was returned to South Africa for a state funeral, and buried in the Heroes' Acre in Pretoria.

7. P. W. Botha (1916 - 2006)

With an HPI of 62.30, P. W. Botha is the 7th most famous South African Politician. His biography has been translated into 51 different languages.

Pieter Willem Botha, (Afrikaans pronunciation: [ˈpitər ˈvələm ˈbuəta]; 12 January 1916 – 31 October 2006) was a South African politician. He served as the last prime minister of South Africa from 1978 to 1984 and the first executive state president of South Africa from 1984 to 1989. First elected to Parliament in 1948, Botha was an opponent of black majority rule and international communism. However, his administration did make concessions towards political reform, whereas internal unrest saw widespread human rights abuses at the hands of his government. Botha resigned as leader of the ruling National Party (NP) in February 1989 after suffering a stroke and six months later was also coerced to leave the presidency. In F. W. de Klerk's 1992 apartheid referendum, Botha campaigned for a No vote and denounced De Klerk's administration as irresponsible for opening the door to black majority rule. In early 1998, when Botha refused to testify at the Mandela government's Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), he was supported by the Conservative Party, which had earlier contested his rule as the official opposition. For his refusal, he was fined and given a suspended jail sentence, which was overturned on appeal due to a technicality.

8. Winnie Madikizela-Mandela (1936 - 2018)

With an HPI of 60.99, Winnie Madikizela-Mandela is the 8th most famous South African Politician. Her biography has been translated into 54 different languages.

Winnie Madikizela-Mandela (born Nomzamo Winifred Zanyiwe Madikizela; 26 September 1936 – 2 April 2018), also known as Winnie Mandela, was a South African anti-apartheid activist, convicted kidnapper, politician, and the second wife of Nelson Mandela. She served as a Member of Parliament from 1994 to 2003, and from 2009 until her death, and was a deputy minister of arts and culture from 1994 to 1996. A member of the African National Congress (ANC) political party, she served on the ANC's National Executive Committee and headed its Women's League. Madikizela-Mandela was known to her supporters as the "Mother of the Nation". Born to a Xhosa royal family in Bizana, and a qualified social worker, she married anti-apartheid activist Nelson Mandela in Johannesburg in 1958; they remained married for 38 years and had two children together. In 1963, after Mandela was imprisoned following the Rivonia Trial, she became his public face during the 27 years he spent in jail. During that period, she rose to prominence within the domestic anti-apartheid movement. Madikizela-Mandela was detained by apartheid state security services on various occasions, tortured, subjected to banning orders, and banished to a rural town, and she spent several months in solitary confinement. In the mid-1980s, Madikizela-Mandela exerted a "reign of terror", and was "at the centre of an orgy of violence" in Soweto, which led to condemnation by the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa, and a rebuke by the ANC in exile. During this period, her home was burned down by residents of Soweto. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) established by Nelson Mandela's government to investigate human rights abuses found Madikizela-Mandela to have been "politically and morally accountable for the gross violations of human rights committed by the Mandela United Football Club", her security detail. Madikizela-Mandela endorsed the necklacing of alleged police informers and apartheid government collaborators, and her security detail carried out kidnapping, torture, and murder, most notoriously the killing of 14-year-old Stompie Sepei whose kidnapping she was convicted of. Nelson Mandela was released from prison on 11 February 1990, and the couple separated in 1992; their divorce was finalised in March 1996. She visited him during his final illness. As a senior ANC figure, she took part in the post-apartheid ANC government, although she was dismissed from her post amid allegations of corruption. In 2003, Madikizela-Mandela was convicted of theft and fraud, and she temporarily withdrew from active politics before returning several years later. Madikizela-Mandela's Xhosa name was Nomzamo. She was born in the village of Mbhongweni, Bizana, Pondoland, in what is now the Eastern Cape province. She was the fifth of nine children, seven sisters and a brother. Her parents, Columbus and Gertrude, who had a white father and Xhosa mother, were both teachers. Columbus was a history teacher and a headmaster, and Gertrude was a domestic science teacher. Madikizela-Mandela went on to become the head girl at her high school in Bizana. Upon leaving school, she went to Johannesburg to study social work at the Jan Hofmeyr School of Social Work. She earned a degree in social work in 1956, and decades later earned a bachelor's degree in international relations from the University of the Witwatersrand. She held a number of jobs in various parts of what was then the Bantustan of Transkei; including with the Transkei government, living at various points of time at Bizana, Shawbury and Johannesburg. Her first job was as a social worker at Baragwanath Hospital in Soweto. Madikizela met lawyer and anti-apartheid activist Nelson Mandela in 1957, when he was still married to Evelyn Mase. She was 22 years old and standing at a bus stop in Soweto when Mandela first saw her and charmed her, securing a lunch date the following week. The couple married in 1958 and had two daughters, Zenani (born 1958) and Zindziswa (born 1960). Mandela was arrested and jailed in 1963 and was not released until 1990. The couple separated in 1992. They finalised their divorce in March 1996 with an unspecified out-of-court settlement. During the divorce hearing, Nelson Mandela rejected Madikizela-Mandela's assertion that arbitration could salvage the marriage, and cited her infidelity as a cause of the divorce, saying "... I am determined to get rid of the marriage". Her attempt to obtain a settlement up to US $5million (R70 million) – half of what she claimed her ex-husband was worth – was dismissed when she failed to appear in court for a settlement hearing. When asked in a 1994 interview about the possibility of reconciliation, she said: "I am not fighting to be the country's First Lady. In fact, I am not the sort of person to carry beautiful flowers and be an ornament to everyone." Madikizela-Mandela was involved in a lawsuit at the time of her death, claiming that she was entitled to Mandela's homestead in Qunu, through customary law, despite her divorce from Nelson Mandela in 1996. Her case was dismissed by the Mthatha High Court in 2016, and she was reportedly preparing to appeal to the Constitutional Court at the time of her death, after failing at the Supreme Court of Appeal in January 2018. Winnie Mandela emerged as a leading opponent of apartheid during the latter part of her husband's imprisonment. Due to her political activities, she was regularly detained by the National Party government. She was subjected to house arrest, kept under surveillance, imprisoned, and banished to the remote town of Brandfort. Her longest jailing was for 491 days (as noted in her account 491 Days: Prisoner Number 1323/69), beginning on 12 May 1969, at Pretoria Central Prison, where she spent months in solitary confinement, and was tortured and beaten. By her own account, her experience in prison "hardened" her. From 1977 to 1985, she was banished to the town of Brandfort in the Orange Free State and confined to the area. It was at this time that she became well known in the Western world. She organised a creche with a non-governmental organization, Operation Hunger and a clinic in Brandfort with Dr Abu Baker Asvat, her personal physician, campaigned actively for equal rights and was promoted by the ANC as a symbol of their struggle against apartheid. While in exile in Brandfort, she, and those who attempted to assist her, were harassed by the apartheid police. In a leaked letter to Jacob Zuma in October 2008, outgoing President of South Africa Thabo Mbeki alluded to the role the ANC had created for Nelson and Winnie Mandela, as representative symbols of the brutality of apartheid: In the context of the global struggle for the release of political prisoners in our country, our movement took a deliberate decision to profile Nelson Mandela as the representative personality of these prisoners, and therefore to use his personal political biography, including the persecution of his wife, Winnie Mandela, dramatically to present to the world and the South African community the brutality of the apartheid system. Beaten by the apartheid police, she developed an addiction to painkillers and alcohol as a result of a back injury caused by the assault. During a speech in Munsieville on 13 April 1986, Madikizela-Mandela endorsed the practice of necklacing (burning people alive using rubber tyres filled with petrol) by saying: "With our boxes of matches and our necklaces we shall liberate this country." Further tarnishing her reputation were accusations by her bodyguard, Jerry Musivuzi Richardson, and others, at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, that she had ordered kidnapping and murder during the second half of the 1980s. Madikizela-Mandela returned to Soweto from Brandfort in late 1985, in defiance of a banning order. During her banishment, the United Democratic Front (UDF) and Congress of South African Trade Unions (CoSATU) had formed a mass-movement against apartheid. The new organisations relied more heavily on collective decision-making structures, rather than on individual charisma. She took a more militaristic approach, eschewing the approach of the newer bodies, and began dressing in military garb, and surrounding herself with bodyguards: the Mandela United Football Club (MUFC). Living in Madikizela-Mandela's home, the putative "soccer team" began hearing family disputes and delivering "judgments" and "sentences", and eventually became associated with kidnapping, torture and murder. She was implicated in at least 15 deaths during this time period. In 1988, Madikizela-Mandela's home was burned by high school students in Soweto, in retaliation for the actions of the Mandela United Football Club. By 1989, after appeals from local residents, and after the Seipei kidnapping, the UDF (in the guise of the Mass Democratic Movement, or MDM), "disowned" her for "violating human rights ... in the name of the struggle against apartheid". The ANC in exile issued a statement criticising her judgment after she refused to heed instructions issued from prison by Nelson Mandela to dissociate herself from the Football Club and after attempts at mediation by an ANC crisis committee failed. In November 1988, 21-year-old Lolo Sono, and his 19-year-old friend Siboniso Shabalala, disappeared in Soweto. Sono's father said he saw his son in a kombi with Madikizela-Mandela, and that his son had been badly beaten. Sono’s mother claimed that Madikizela-Mandela had labelled her son a spy, and had said she was "taking him away". At the subsequent Truth and Reconciliation Commission hearings, Sono's stepmother said, "I am pleading with Mrs Mandela today, in front of the whole world, that please, Mrs Mandela, give us our son back. Even if he is dead, let Mrs Mandela give us the remains of our son, so that we must bury him decently." Sono and Shabalala's bodies were exhumed from pauper's graves in Soweto's Avalon Cemetery in 2013, by the National Prosecuting Authority's Missing People's Task Team, having been stabbed soon after their abductions. On 29 December 1988, Jerry Richardson, who was coach of the Mandela United Football Club, abducted 14-year-old James Seipei (also known as Stompie Moeketsi) and three other youths from the home of Methodist minister Paul Verryn, with Richardson claiming that Madikizela-Mandela had the youths taken to her home because she suspected the minister was sexually abusing them (allegations that were baseless). The four were beaten to get them to admit to having had sex with the minister. Negotiations that lasted 10 days, by senior ANC and community leaders to get the kidnapped boys released by Madikizela-Mandela failed. Seipei was accused of being an informer, and his body later found in a field with stab wounds to the throat on 6 January 1989. In 1991, Mrs Mandela was acquitted of all but the kidnapping of Seipei. A key witness, Katiza Cebekhulu, who was going to testify that Madikizela-Mandela had killed Sepei, had been tortured and kidnapped to Zambia by her supporters prior to the trial, to prevent him testifying against her. Her six-year jail sentence was reduced to a fine on appeal. In 1992, she was accused of ordering the murder of Abu Baker Asvat, a family friend and prominent Soweto doctor, who had examined Seipei at Mandela's house, after Seipei had been abducted but before he had been killed. Mandela's role in the Asvat killing was later probed as part of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission hearings in 1997. Asvat's murderer testified that she paid the equivalent of $8,000 and supplied the firearm used in the killing, which took place on 27 January 1989. The hearings were later adjourned amid claims that witnesses were being intimidated on Madikizela-Mandela's orders. In a 2017 documentary about the life and activism of Madikizela-Mandela, former Soweto police officer Henk Heslinga alleged that former safety minister Sydney Mufamadi had instructed him to re-open the investigation into the death of Seipei, as well as all other cases made against Madikizela-Mandela, for the purpose of charging Winnie with murder. According to Heslinga, Richardson admitted during an interview that Seipei discovered he was an informant, and that he killed the child to cover his tracks. However, at a press conference a few days after Madikizela-Mandela's funeral, Mufamadi denied the allegations in the documentary, stating that Helsinga's statements were false. The documentary had previously been described by in a review by Vanity Fair as "unabashedly one-sided" and "overwhelmingly defensive". Commentator Max du Preez, called the decision by television station eNCA to broadcast the documentary in the week prior to Madikizela-Mandela's funeral without context a "serious mistake", and he described it as making "outrageous claims", while former TRC commissioner Dumisa Ntsebeza questioned the motives of the documentary maker. In January 2018, ANC MP Mandla, Nelson Mandela's grandson by his first wife, Evelyn Mase, called for Madikizela-Mandela's role in the Asvat and Seipei murders to be probed. In October 2018 a new biography of Madikizela-Mandela concluded that she had been responsible for the murder of Asvat. In April 2018, Joyce Seipei, the mother of Stompie Seipei, told media that she did not believe that Winnie Madikizela-Mandela was involved in her son’s murder. In a subsequent interview with UK paper The Independent, Joyce Seipei said that she had forgiven Madikizela-Mandela, and that during the TRC hearings, Madikizela-Mandela had told her, in the context of her son Stompie's murder: "...may God forgive me". After the TRC hearings, Madikizela-Mandela had provided financial support to Joyce Sepei's family, and Seipei's home was furnished by the ANC. The final report of the Truth and Reconciliation commission (TRC), issued in 1998, found "Ms Winnie Madikizela Mandela politically and morally accountable for the gross violations of human rights committed by the Mandela United Football Club" and that she "was responsible, by omission, for the commission of gross violations of human rights." The TRC report also stated that the abduction to Zambia of the Sepei trial witness Katiza Cebekhulu, where he was detained without trial for almost 3 years by the Kenneth Kaunda government before moving to the UK, was done by the ANC and in the "interests" of Madikizela-Mandela. The TRC found allegations against Methodist minister Paul Verryn to be "unfounded and without any merit" and that "Madikizela-Mandela deliberately and maliciously slandered Verryn...in an attempt to divert attention away from herself and [her] associates...". The TRC also found that she was responsible for the abduction of, and assaults on, Stompie Sepei, and that she had attempted to cover up his death by claiming he had fled to Botswana. She was found by the TRC to be responsible for the 1988 disappearance of Lolo Sono and Siboniso Shabalala. During South Africa's transition to multi-racial democracy, she adopted a far less conciliatory attitude to White South Africans and was considered to be as controversial as her husband was before his arrest. She was seen on her husband's arm when he was released in February 1990, the first time the couple had been seen in public for nearly 30 years. Their 38-year marriage ended in April 1992 after rumours of unfaithfulness. Their divorce was finalised in March 1996. She then adopted the surname "Madikizela-Mandela". Also in 1992, she lost her position as the head of the ANC social welfare department, amid allegations of corruption. Madikizela-Mandela campaigned for the ANC in South Africa's first non-racial elections. Appointed Deputy Minister of Arts, Culture, Science and Technology in May 1994, she was dismissed 11 months later following allegations of corruption. In 1995, prominent members of the ANC Women's League, including Adelaide Tambo resigned from the National Executive Committee of that body because of disagreement with Madikizela-Mandela's leadership of the body and amid a controversy about a large donation from Pakistani politician Benazir Bhutto that was not handed over to the League by Madikizela-Mandela. She remained extremely popular amongst many African National Congress (ANC) supporters. In December 1993 and April 1997, she was elected president of the ANC Women's League, although she withdrew her candidacy for ANC Deputy President at the movement's Mafikeng conference in December 1997. Earlier in 1997, she appeared before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Archbishop Desmond Tutu as chairman of the commission recognised her importance in the anti-apartheid struggle but exhorted her to apologise and to admit her mistakes. In a guarded response, she admitted "things went horribly wrong". During the 1990s, she associated with the Israeli mafia operating in South Africa, which was involved in extorting the local Jewish community, and other criminal activity. In 2002, Madikizela-Mandela was found guilty by a Parliamentary ethics committee of failing to disclose donations and financial interests. Madikizela Mandela was often absent from Parliament, sometimes for months at a time and was ordered by Parliament to account for her absences in 2003. In 2003, Madikizela-Mandela offered to act as a human shield prior to the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Also in 2003, she helped defuse a hostage situation at Wits University, where a student who was in arrears with fees took a staff member hostage at knifepoint. On 24 April 2003, Madikizela-Mandela was convicted on 435 counts of fraud and 25 of theft, and her broker, Addy Moolman, was convicted on 58 counts of fraud and 25 of theft. Both had pleaded not guilty. The charges related to money taken from loan applicants' accounts for a funeral fund, but from which the applicants did not benefit. Madikizela-Mandela was sentenced to five years in prison. Shortly after the conviction, she resigned from all leadership positions in the ANC, including her parliamentary seat and the presidency of the ANC Women's League. In July 2004, an appeal judge of the Pretoria High Court ruled that "the crimes were not committed for personal gain". The judge overturned the conviction for theft, but upheld the one for fraud, handing her a three years and six months suspended sentence. When the ANC announced the election of its National Executive Committee on 21 December 2007, Madikizela-Mandela placed first with 2,845 votes. Madikizela-Mandela criticised the anti-immigrant violence in May–June 2008 that began in Johannesburg and spread throughout the country and blamed the government's lack of suitable housing provisions for the sentiments behind the riots. She apologised to the victims of the riots and visited the Alexandra township. She offered her home as shelter for an immigrant family from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. She warned that the perpetrators of the violence could strike at the Gauteng train system. Madikizela-Mandela secured fifth place on the ANC's electoral list for the 2009 general election, behind party president Jacob Zuma, President of South Africa Kgalema Motlanthe, Deputy President Baleka Mbete, and Finance Minister Trevor Manuel. An article in The Observer suggested her position near the top of the list indicated that the party's leadership saw her as a valuable asset in the election with regard to solidifying support among the party's grassroots and the poor. Madkizela-Mandela was largely sidelined by the ANC in the post-apartheid period. Despite her status as an ANC MP over much of that period, she largely associated with non-ANC figures including Bantu Holomisa and Julius Malema. Madikizela-Mandela was a political patron of Malema, who was expelled from the ANC and later formed his own party, the Economic Freedom Fighters. In 2010, Madikizela-Mandela was interviewed by Nadira Naipaul. In the interview, she attacked her ex-husband, claiming that he had "let blacks down", that he was only "wheeled out to collect money", and that he is "nothing more than a foundation". She further attacked his decision to accept the Nobel Peace Prize with F. W. de Klerk. Among other things, she reportedly claimed Mandela was no longer "accessible" to her daughters. She referred to Archbishop Desmond Tutu, in his capacity as the head of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, as a "cretin". The interview attracted media attention, and the ANC announced that it would ask her to explain her comments regarding Nelson Mandela. On 14 March 2010, a statement was issued on Madikizela-Mandela's behalf claiming that the interview was a fabrication. Winnie Madikizela-Mandela died at the Netcare Milpark Hospital in Johannesburg on 2 April 2018 at the age of 81. She suffered from diabetes and had recently undergone several major surgeries. She "had been in and out of hospital since the start of the year". In the lead-up to Madikizela-Mandela's funeral, in a politically fraught environment soon after the ouster of former president Jacob Zuma, Jessie Duarte, a senior ANC leader, warned critics to "sit down and shut up", with Economic Freedom Fighters leader Julius Malema saying that "anyone who accuses Mama Winnie of any crime is guilty of treason". Madikizela-Mandela was granted a "Special Official Funeral" by the South African government. Her public funeral service was held at Orlando Stadium on 14 April 2018. Planning for Madikizela Mandela's funeral was largely handled by her daughters and Julius Malema, and the ANC reportedly had to "fight for space" on the programme. At the public service, ANC and South African President Cyril Ramaphosa "acknowledged" that the ANC failed to stand by Madikizela-Mandela's side during her legal troubles. Julius Malema delivered an impassioned speech in which he criticised the United Democratic Front for distancing themselves from Madikizela-Mandela in the 1980s. Malema also criticised members of the National Executive Committee of the ANC Women's League for resigning in 1995, because they regarded Madikizela-Mandela as a "criminal". Madikizela-Mandela's daughter Zenani attacked those who "vilified" her mother, calling them hypocrites. After the public service, her body was interred at a cemetery in Fourways in the north of Johannesburg during a private memorial service. A number of ANC figures prepared to defend themselves against the allegations made at the funeral; however, the ANC urged "restraint". Mandela was portrayed by Alfre Woodard in the 1987 HBO TV movie, Mandela. Woodard earned both a CableACE Award and an NAACP Image Award for her performance, as did costar Danny Glover, who portrayed Nelson Mandela. Tina Lifford played her in the 1997 TV film Mandela and de Klerk. Sophie Okonedo portrayed her in the BBC drama Mrs Mandela, first broadcast on BBC Four on 25 January 2010. Jennifer Hudson played her in Winnie Mandela, directed by Darrell Roodt, released in Canada by D Films on 16 September 2011. Roodt, Andre Pieterse, and Paul L. Johnson based the film's script on Anne Marie du Preez Bezdrob's biography, Winnie Mandela: A Life. The Creative Workers Union of South Africa opposed the choice of Hudson in the title role, saying the use of foreign actors to tell the country's stories undermined efforts to develop the national film industry. Though the performances of Hudson and Terrance Howard, who portrayed Nelson Mandela, earned praise from many critics, the film was a critical and commercial failure. In 2007, an opera based on her life called The Passion of Winnie was produced in Canada; however, she was declined a visa to attend its world premiere and associated gala fundraising concert. Mandela was again portrayed in the 2013 film Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom by actress Naomie Harris (British actor Idris Elba played Nelson Mandela). On viewing the film, Madikizela-Mandela told Harris it was "the first time she felt her story had been captured on film". Gugulethu okaMseleku, writing in The Guardian, stated that the film had returned Madikizela-Mandela to her rightful place, recognising her role in "the struggle" that, "for South African women ... was more fundamental than her husband's." In 1985, Mandela won the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award along with fellow activists Allan Boesak and Beyers Naudé for their human rights work in South Africa. She received a Candace Award for Distinguished Service from the National Coalition of 100 Black Women in 1988. In January 2018, the University Council and University Senate of Makerere University, Kampala, Uganda, approved the award of an honorary Doctor of Laws (LLD) degree to Winnie Nomzamo Madikizela-Mandela, in recognition of her fight against apartheid in South Africa. In 2021, the Mbizana Local Municipality in the Eastern Cape was officially renamed the Winnie Madikizela-Mandela Local Municipality. The town of Brandfort in the Free State was also officially renamed as Winnie Mandela. In 2022, the section of the R562 road connecting Midrand with Olifantsfontein, was renamed from Olifantsfontein Road to Winnie Madikizela-Mandela Road by the City of Ekurhuleni in Gauteng. List of civil rights leaders List of people subject to banning orders under apartheid The Resurrection of Winnie Mandela, 2018 biography of Mandela by Sisonke Msimang List of members of the National Assembly of South Africa who died in office Blackwell, Geoff; Hobday, Ruth (31 October 2017). 200 Women. San Francisco: Chronicle Books. pp. 150–53. ISBN 978-1452166582. OCLC 1007173093. Jonny Steinberg: Winnie & Nelson. Portrait of a Marriage. London, William Collins, 2023. ISBN 9780008353797 Winnie Madikizela-Mandela at IMDb "Fall of Winnie Mandela Began Nearly 2 Years Ago; Erratic Behavior Preceded Recent Violence" Archived 6 October 2012 at the Wayback Machine, The Washington Post, 18 February 1989 "Winnie Mandela on bank fraud charges", Telegraph, 15 October 2001 Alec Russell, "Mrs Mandela defies accusers", Telegraph, 5 December 1997 "Winnie Mandela 'had hand in boy's murder'", Telegraph, 9 December 1997 "Special Investigation into the Mandela United Football Club", Kagablog, 9 January 2008 Emma Gilbey., The Lady: the life and times of Winnie Mandela, London: Vintage, 1994. ISBN 0-09-938801-4 NEC statement on Mandela Football Club, 19 February 1989 "Winnie Madikizela-Mandela Biography Summary" Rachel Holmes, "Queer Comrades: Winnie Mandela and the Moffies", Social Text, No. 52/53, Queer Transexions of Race, Nation, and Gender (Autumn – Winter, 1997), pp. 161–180 Report on Winnie Mandela on Japan Today News Can Winnie Mandela's Heroism Outshine her Crimes? by BBC News, 25 January 2010

9. D. F. Malan (1874 - 1959)

With an HPI of 58.96, D. F. Malan is the 9th most famous South African Politician. His biography has been translated into 32 different languages.

Daniël François Malan (Afrikaans pronunciation: [ˈdɑːni.əl franˈswɑː mɑːˈlan]; 22 May 1874 – 7 February 1959) was a South African politician who served as the fourth prime minister of South Africa from 1948 to 1954. The National Party implemented the system of apartheid, which enforced racial segregation laws, during his tenure as prime minister.

10. Jan Smuts (1870 - 1950)

With an HPI of 58.82, Jan Smuts is the 10th most famous South African Politician. His biography has been translated into 42 different languages.

Field Marshal Jan Christian Smuts, (baptismal name Jan Christiaan Smuts, 24 May 1870 – 11 September 1950) was a South African statesman, military leader and philosopher. In addition to holding various military and cabinet posts, he served as prime minister of the Union of South Africa from 1919 to 1924 and 1939 to 1948. Smuts was born to Afrikaner parents in the British Cape Colony. He was educated at Victoria College, Stellenbosch before reading law at Christ's College, Cambridge on a scholarship. He was called to the bar at the Middle Temple in 1894 but returned home the following year. In the leadup to the Second Boer War, Smuts practised law in Pretoria, the capital of the South African Republic. He led the republic's delegation to the Bloemfontein Conference and served as an officer in a commando unit following the outbreak of war in 1899. In 1902, he played a key role in negotiating the Treaty of Vereeniging, which ended the war and resulted in the annexation of the South African Republic and Orange Free State into the British Empire. He subsequently helped negotiate self-government for the Transvaal Colony, becoming a cabinet minister under Louis Botha. Smuts played a leading role in the creation of the Union of South Africa in 1910, helping shape its constitution. He and Botha established the South African Party, with Botha becoming the union's first prime minister and Smuts holding multiple cabinet portfolios. As defence minister he was responsible for the Union Defence Force during the First World War. Smuts personally led troops in the East African campaign in 1916 and the following year joined the Imperial War Cabinet in London. He played a leading role at the Paris Peace Conference of 1919, advocating for the creation of the League of Nations and securing South African control over the former German South-West Africa. In 1919, Smuts replaced Botha as prime minister, holding the office until the South African Party's defeat at the 1924 general election by J. B. M. Hertzog's National Party. He spent several years in academia, during which he coined the term "holism", before eventually re-entering politics as deputy prime minister in a coalition with Hertzog; in 1934 their parties subsequently merged to form the United Party. Smuts returned as prime minister in 1939, leading South Africa into the Second World War at the head of a pro-interventionist faction. He was appointed field marshal in 1941 and in 1945 signed the UN Charter, the only signer of the Treaty of Versailles to do so. His second term in office ended with the victory of his political opponents, the reconstituted National Party at the 1948 general election, with the new government beginning the implementation of apartheid. Smuts was an internationalist who played a key role in establishing and defining the League of Nations, United Nations and Commonwealth of Nations. He supported racial segregation and opposed democratic non-racial rule. At the end of his career, Smuts supported the Fagan Commission's recommendations to relax restrictions on black South Africans living and working in urban areas.

People

Pantheon has 63 people classified as South African politicians born between 1787 and 1988. Of these 63, 18 (28.57%) of them are still alive today. The most famous living South African politicians include Cyril Ramaphosa, Jacob Zuma, and Thabo Mbeki. The most famous deceased South African politicians include F. W. de Klerk, Shaka, and Paul Kruger. As of April 2024, 6 new South African politicians have been added to Pantheon including Baleka Mbete, Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri, and Naledi Pandor.