Controversial South African political figure and Zulu minister Mangosuthu Buthelezi dies at 95
Zulu ethnic group Prince Mangosuthu Buthelezi has died at the age of 95, South African president Cyril Ramaphosa announced on Saturday.
Buthelezi founded the Inkatha Freedom Party, the third largest political party in South Africa when the country transitioned from the racist apartheid system to a democratic one in 1994.
He was admitted to hospital in July following a failed medical procedure to ease his back pain, his family said at the time.
«Prince Buthelezi, who served as the democratic South Africa's first Minister of Home Affairs, passed away in the early hours of today, Saturday, 9 September 2023, just two weeks after the celebration of his 95th birthday,» Ramaphosa said in a statement on Saturday.
According to Ramaphosa, arrangements for his mourning and funeral will be announced after consultations with the Zulu royal family.
«Prince Mangosuthu Buthelezi has been an outstanding leader in the political and cultural life of our nation, including the ebbs and flows of our liberation struggle, the transition which secured our freedom in 1994 and our democratic dispensation,» said Ramaphosa.
Buthelezi was part of the late Nelson Mandela's first cabinet when the latter became South Africa's first democratically elected president in 1994.
Mandela appointed him as a minister of home affairs, a position he continued to hold in the second administration of former president Thabo Mbeki.
His legacy has remained a contested one due to the role he played during South Africa's apartheid era, including heading the administrative region of Zululand, a part of the «homelands» regions that were the cornerstone of the apartheid government's policy of separate development.
His party was also blamed for the pre-election violence that
