‘We’d like to be him’
After the ANC won the first multi racial elections, Mandela went out of his way to assuage the fears of the white minority, declaring his intention to establish “a rainbow nation at peace with itself and the world”.
Critics said his five year presidency was marred by corruption and rising levels of crime. But his successors, Thabo Mbeki and Jacob Zuma, have never enjoyed anywhere near the same levels of respect or affection.
His divorce from second wife Winnie was finalised in 1996.
He found new love in retirement with Graca Machel, the widow of the late Mozambican president Samora Machel, whom he married on his 80th birthday.
In one of his last foreign policy interventions, he issued a searing rebuke of George W. Bush on the eve of the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, calling him “a president who has no foresight, who cannot think properly, is now wanting to plunge the world into a holocaust”.
Bush’s predecessor as US president, Bill Clinton, had a higher opinion of Mandela.
“Every time Nelson Mandela walks in a room we all feel a little bigger, we all want to stand up, we all want to cheer, because we’d like to be him on our best day,” he said.
Myanmar’s own democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi spoke of her “extreme grief” at the death of her fellow Nobel Peace laureate, who she said had “made us understand that we can change the world”.
Mandela is survived by three daughters, 18 grandchildren, nine great-grandchildren and three stepgrandchildren. He had four step children through his marriage to Machel.
His death has left his family divided over his wealth. Some of his children and grandchildren are locked in a legal feud with his close friends over alleged irregularities in his two companies.
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