South African Politics Quotes

My own electorate, which I represented for 36 years as an anti-apartheid politician, had a considerable number of Jewish voters supporting me throughout my career.

There is no way out of the political troubles of South Africa except for reform in the Transvaal, or war.

My campaign to become leader of the ANC was pivoted on two things: Renewing the ANC and taking back to the values the were espoused and subscribed to by Nelson Mandela, Oliver Thambo, and many other leaders.

The youth of the ANC, ever since 1944 when it was established, has been very vocal. It has made suggestions on things so that, at times, old people said, 'What are you doing?' That is its nature. Alliance partners, they have always raised issues. In fact, that is what brings vibrancy in the alliance. People misread that as huge fights.

My mother's husband Harry Bloom was a writer, a novelist, a reporter, and an anti-apartheid activist.

We will wash and clean the ANC, and it will be the ANC you know. The ANC that will work for the people.

I have strong views about South African politics and I still don't feel I need to make public statements.

There was a close relationship between Mandela and the CBC.

Don't talk to me about what's happened since [Nelson] Mandela! His successor was absolutely hopeless - "no such thing as AIDS" - and this present President... It's a tragedy, you know, what's happened there post-Mandela, because he was an iconic figure.

The A.N.C. was established in 1912 and the S.A. Communist Party in 1921, and so there has been an overlapping of membership all along the line.

It was deeply important for me to understand where Mandela came from. Because we know where he was going, and that's a famous story, but who was he? Where did he come from? What was his upbringing?

Before I went to jail, I was active in politics as a member of South Africa's leading organization - and I was generally busy from 7 A.M. until midnight. I never had time to sit and think.

I'd love to meet Thuli Madonsela, as she is such a powerful and dynamic woman.

I can see quite clearly that if there was a single event that launched me on the road to ultimate involvement at the heart of South African politics, it was an assault on an African woman by her white employer in a kitchen in Fort Hare.

The ANC will rule South Africa until Jesus comes back.

President Mandela was not a hands-on president at any time.

After Versace was murdered, the first person to call me was Mandela.

The DA is the only party in South Africa that has grown in every national election and that trend must continue, and it must accelerate, because South Africa is in a race against time to save our democracy.

Mandela was a guy who didn't come in and just eviscerate the existing institutions. He sought to co-opt them. He brought white South Africans into his government.

Helen Zille, formidable leader of the Democratic Alliance, routinely vilified as representing white interests only, is trying to make sure everyone knows that the case against Zuma is strong and is trying to have it investigated in a judicial review.

The ANC will never die; it will live.