Outside the Rand Supreme Court building the crowds of supporters dressed in African National Congress colors have dwindled to a handful of hangerson. The senior ANC officials who jammed the courtroom at the opening of Winnie Mandela’s kidnap-and-assault trial last February are nowhere to be seen these days. Her staunchest backer, husband Nelson, turned up twice as she took the witness stand last week, only to leave the courthouse minutes later. After four days of testimony, Winnie couldn’t seem to hold on to anything: her credibility and her political stature seemed equally in doubt.
The trial has taken its toll on Winnie Mandela. The grimfaced matron who sat in the dock with arms crossed was a far cry from the cocky defendant who greeted well-wishers with clenched-fist salutes in the early stages of the trial. Under 13 hours of withering cross-examination by state prosecutor Jan Swanepoel, the 56-year-old Mandela couldn’t convincingly explain why two key state witnesses would have fabricated evidence implicating her in the December 1988 abduction and beating of four youths at her Soweto residence. One of the youths, “Stompie” Moeketsi Seipei, was found dead. Conceding that nearly two years went by before she produced the alibi on which her defense rests–that she was in the Orange Free State town of Brandfort on the day she allegedly took part in the assaults–Winnie claimed that she had been “advised by my attorneys to keep a dignified silence.” A verdict in the trial-by-judge case is expected next month.
Her political comeback may be over regardless of the ruling. Two years ago, when Moeketsi’s body was discovered, Winnie was in political limbo. Moeketsi was one of the four youths brought to Winnie’s home by a gang of Soweto toughs, and one of her aides, soccer “coach” Jerry Richardson, was later found guilty of Stompie’s murder and sentenced to death. Yet in the 15 months since Nelson Mandela regained his freedom, Winnie not only repaired her image but acquired new clout within the ANC, becoming head of its social-welfare department and winning key positions on two regional ANC bodies.
Winnie still managed to rankle many within the congress. Dozens of ANC branches passionately opposed her appointment as chief of the social-welfare department. A hostile silence greeted her recently as she was introduced at a Soweto funeral for a slain human-rights attorney. Many ANC activists simply distrust her, a view underscored by the suspicious disappearance of a key prosecution witness on the eve of the trial’s opening. Senior ANC officials distanced themselves from a Winnie Mandela support committee when it was launched in March. “She appears to be out on a limb,” said one ANC source. “[The ANC] is not making a major organizational effort on the trial anymore.” And, having taken a fresh swipe on the witness stand last week at four officials of an ANC affiliate, she is unlikely to enjoy broad backing even if she wins a seat on the ANC’s national executive committee in the election due this July.
What fate awaits Winnie Mandela? A guilty verdict, even on the lesser charge of assault, would bolster the position of her many enemies inside the ANC. Few people expect to see Winnie sentenced to prison: there is too much riding on talks between Nelson Mandela and the government of President F. W. de Klerk. But a conviction would probably give the coup de grace to a fading political career, now kept alive by her husband and the claque of ANC elders newly returned from years of exile.
