Mandela’s fragile state of health has sparked speculation that the tour could be halted, or radically changed, if the anti-apartheid icon passes away while Obama is on the continent.
South Africa’s foreign minister Maite Nkoana Mashabane said that while Obama would have loved to see Mandela, a meeting with the former South African leader would be impossible.
Mandela – whose 95th birthday is on July 18 – has been hospitalised four times since December, mostly for a recurring lung infection dating back to his time in jail for sabotage against the apartheid government.
The world watched as the man once branded a terrorist by the United States and Britain raised his fist as he walked free from prison near Cape Town in 1990.
Mandela went on to negotiate an end to white minority rule and won South Africa’s first fully democratic elections in 1994.
He forged a path of racial reconciliation during his single term as president, before taking up a new role as a roving elder statesman and leading AIDS campaigner.
He stepped back from public life in 2004 and has not been seen in public since the football World Cup finals in South Africa in 2010.
With his health now fading, Mandela’s supporters are starting to show signs of resignation — while preparing to celebrate his legacy.
“He’s now (nearly) 95 years old so we don’t have to worry about him,’ 40-year-old Jauffre Basube said. “I think he’s done what he’s supposed to do.”
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