Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela (Madiba)

The left-centre struggle is most intense in the Xhosa Eastern Cape birthplace of Nelson Mandela Mbeki and other ANC leaders; the province sends more delegates to the national conference than others...

In 1994 Nelson Mandela's transitional Government of National Unity included six former apartheid ministers; two years later ex-President Frederik Willem de Klerk led a walkout and the breach was never repaired...

Then President Nelson Mandela after consulting Mbeki appointed Penuell Maduna an ANC lawyer as Minister of Mineral and Energy Affairs...

Hitimana claimed that Buyoya was imposed as head of state in 2001 by the then mediator former South African president Nelson Mandela against the wishes of most Tutsi and Hutu politicians...

Madikizela-Mandela though not a candidate is admired by some traditional leaders and rural electors and could cause trouble; another influential loose cannon is former 'homeland' ruler Bantu Holomisa who founded the breakaway United Democratic Movement and resisted ex-President Nelson Mandela's attempt to woo him back to the ANC...

Professor Meer a lifelong ANC activist who wrote Nelson Mandela's official biography Higher than Hope has recently led protests in Durban's Indian townships against the ANC-dominated council's housing policy...

For a while the ANC seemed to have tamed Buthelezi by giving him a senior cabinet post and occasionally allowing him to assume the role of acting president when Nelson Mandela and Thabo Mbeki were out of the country...

The DP was formed in 1989 just before Nelson Mandela's release from Robben Island as a repository of liberal values funded by big business...

Another Xhosa ex-President Nelson Mandela unsuccessfully wooed Holomisa but he has flirted with the PAC...

Surprisingly it was led by Graça Machel widow of President Samora Machel (and now married to South African ex-President Nelson Mandela) and by Jorge Rebelo...