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Graça Machel

Johannesburg — Graça Machel, the wife of former president Nelson Mandela, has provided emotional stability during her husband’s lengthy hospital stay, the City Press reported yesterday. “Madiba always wants reassurance that she is close by. She provides emotional stability not only to him but also to many of us,” Mandela’s personal assistant Zelda la Grange told the newspaper.
The City Press reported that since his admittance to Pretoria’s Medi-Clinic Heart Hospital, Machel has not left Mandela’s side for more than three hours before returning to him.

She apparently sleeps in a chair next to his bed and has clothes and other items brought in for her each week.
Yesterday marked the 30th day Mandela has been in hospital receiving treatment for a recurring lung infection.

The Nelson Mandela Centre for Memory’s Verne Harris told the newspaper that Machel had requested that some of the tributes left for Mandela at the hospital be collected and brought back to the centre.

“Those that had addresses on she asked us to please respond to, sending thanks. She was worried they would become weathered.”
The 15th wedding anniversary of Machel and Mandela is celebrated this month.

Meanwhile, the Sunday Times reported that Machel is seen as a lone beacon of dignity as the Mandela family continue to battle it out in court and in the media for the right to control the ailing statesman’s name, legacy and final resting place.

Even Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu has commented, saying Machel was “a strong woman of enormous stature. But graciousness is the first word that comes to mind when one thinks of her: gracious wife, gracious feminist, gracious human being. Gracious, but not to be trifled with or under-estimated”.

She did not even leave Mandela’s bedside to meet US President Barack Obama last week.
But as the Mandela family row continued to rage, Machel made a rare public appearance and took to the podium briefly at the launch of a sporting event for the Nelson Mandela Centre for Memory. It was here that she tried to put the public’s fears to rest and assured people that “although Madiba sometimes may be uncomfortable, very few times he is in pain, but he is fine.”

In a related development, a row over the legitimacy of Mandla Mandela’s official status has deepened as questions were raised as to whether government followed the correct procedure when it restored the Mvezo chieftaincy.

AbaThembu King Buyelekhaya Dalindyebo said he had not signed a certificate of recognition, which is necessary to cement the young Mandela’s status by government, reported the Sunday Times.

On Saturday night, reports surfaced that the king was in the process of expelling Mandla from “all ranks of duty” because he “has not only angered us, he has also angered his own family”.

This comes after the king accused Mandla of being part of a plot to unseat him.
Dalindyebo said the Eastern Cape government had forced through a rushed recognition and inauguration of Mandla’s chieftaincy as a birthday gift to Mandela six years ago.

Dalindyebo said he had not signed the certificate because of irregularities. These included that it was not the Tembu royal house that had initiated recognition and that he had not been consulted over the move.

Meanwhile, Makaziwe Mandela and her niece Ndileka held a sensitive meeting at the end of last month with officials from the SABC and the presidency over broadcasting rights for Mandela’s eventual funeral.

The Sunday Independent reported that the meeting was convened to discuss the coverage of Mandela’s funeral, of which the SABC is the official broadcaster. However the Mandelas demanded that CNN be given “preferential” access and status throughout.

One of the officials that attended the meeting slammed the conversation as “inappropriate” coming from family members about a “funeral deal concerning one of their own”.

“We are aggrieved and understandably so,” said the official. “But there appears to be little we can do as the family appears to have their own plans.”
Another official said “this wasn’t a request. It was a demand. The CNN deal seems to be done and dusted”. — News24