John Mavuso | |
|---|---|
| Minister for General Services | |
| In office 31 March 1996 – 30 June 1996 | |
| President | Nelson Mandela |
| Preceded by | Position established |
| Succeeded by | Position abolished |
| Personal details | |
| Born | 1926 (1926) Ermelo,Transvaal Union of South Africa |
| Died | (2011-05-24)24 May 2011 Midrand, Gauteng South Africa |
| Political party | National Party |
| Other political affiliations | |
John Solane Absolom Mavuso (1926 – 24 May 2011) was a South African politician who served as Minister for General Services inNelson Mandela'sGovernment of National Unity between March and June 1996. He represented theNational Party in Parliament. However, in the 1950s, Mavuso was aTreason Triallist and a member of theNational Executive Committee of theAfrican National Congress.
Mavuso was born in 1926 inErmelo in the formerEastern Transvaal, nowMpumalanga Province.[1] He joined theAfrican National Congress (ANC) in 1948, the year that theNational Party (NP) came to power with a mandate to implementapartheid,[2] and he was active in the ANC'sAlexandra branch while working as a messenger and shopkeeper inJohannesburg.[1] He was a member of the ANC'sNational Executive Committee (NEC) from 1955 to 1956.[1][3] He wasbanned several times under theSuppression of Communism Act and in December 1956 he was arrested in Johannesburg and charged withtreason as one of 156 accused in theTreason Trial.[1] The charges against him were dropped in December 1957.[1]
The ANC was banned by the government in 1960 but Mavuso continued to work for the organisation underground.[3] In 1962, he was appointed as a member of the ANC's National Secretariat under the leadership ofGovan Mbeki; in the aftermath of theRivonia Trial arrests, the body took over the functions of the NEC.[4] In the mid-1960s Mavuso was suspected of being a police informant, on the grounds that several underground operatives had been arrested during rendezvous set up by Mavuso; however, most of his comrades came to the conclusion that theSecurity Branch had identified him as an ANC leader and kept him under surveillance in order to identify his contacts.[4]
By 1988 Mavuso had left the ANC and worked in the provincial government of theTransvaal.[5] He joinedInkatha for a period before joining the NP in 1993.[6][7] Attending the party's annual conference in the Transvaal that year, he told a reporter that he admired that the NP, which by then wasnegotiating the end of apartheid, had the "courage... to admit its mistakes of the past and to decide to follow a new road of reconciliation".[7]
Mavuso was not initially elected to Parliament in South Africa'sfirst post-apartheid elections in 1994,[8] but he joined during the legislative term: in February 1996, the NP nominated him for appointment as a minister in theGovernment of National Unity, PresidentNelson Mandela's transitional power-sharing cabinet. Mavuso was named as Minister for General Services, a new ministry without portfolio that would perform special tasks assigned by the cabinet,[2] and he took office at the end of March 1996.[9]
He was the first black NP politician to serve in the cabinet and his appointment was viewed as part of the NP's campaign to broaden its appeal to non-white voters.[6][2] TheMail & Guardian quoted NP presidentF. W. de Klerk as having told an NP rally that Mavuso was "a black man... but he is a competent black" and said that Mavuso's critics characterised him as a "party-hopping hack".[10] Mavuso responded:
If Jews and Germans can intermarry, what the hell is wrong with us coming to terms with theAfrikaners? Of all the parties I have come to know, the National Party had the courage to make a U-turn on a horrendous policy [apartheid]... Let other people who’ve been responsible for burning other blacks alive in the name of liberation take the courage to apologize to the nation. Then I will see some credibility in black leadership.[2]
In May 1996, weeks after Mavuso took office, de Klerk announced that the NP and its members would be withdrawing from all posts in the cabinet on 30 June.[11] Mandela subsequently disbanded Mavuso's ministry.[12] However, Mavuso remained an ordinary Member of Parliament.[13] He was viewed as solidly in themoderate camp of the NP[14] and he was involved in campaigning for theDemocratic Alliance (DA) when the NP (then restyled as theNew National Party) joined the alliance in 2000.[15]
Mavuso married his first wife Sonto Sybil Mavuso (née Mdakane). They had multiple children. Surviving until adulthood from his first marriage were Mayibuye Mavuso, Gabisile Mavuso, Thokozile Mavuso and Phindile Mavuso. Others died in childhood due to alleged abuses in her marital home. During the apartheid they lived in Alexandra Gauteng with other prominent apartheid figures such as Nelson Mandela and Winnie Madikizela Mandela. From his first marriage he has 3 grandchildren, and 2 great grandchildren. Sonto and John separated. Sonto resided in Newcastle while John remained in Johannesburg. He was an absent father to their children. Except Mayibuye whom he had a close relationship with as the older boy child. He remarried.Mavuso died on 24 May 2011 in hospital inMidrand. He was married and had four children and several grandchildren.[3]