NATIONAL NEWS - In its official statement following the passing of struggle icon Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) have said that she is the “first black female president South Africa was deprived of”.

EFF spokesperson Mbuyiseni Ndlozi said the party felt she had been suppressed by both white suppression and patriarchal attitudes.

“Mama Winnie Mandela is the stone that the builders rejected. She is the first black female president South Africa was deprived of. Her irreplaceable contribution to the liberation of our people was a subject of both Patriarchal and white minority suppression; her well deserved, tried and tested, rise into the highest seat in the country was only suppressed by the patriarchally dominated liberation movement and its complicity with white minority establishment. They hated her because she was a black woman with her own mind and who enjoyed the collective popular confidence of masses of our people. They hated her because she never compromised her message of radical black emancipation.”

They criticised the liberation movement led by the ANC.

“For denying us Winnie Mandela as the president of the Republic South Africa, the liberation movement must bury its head in shame in this painful hour of loss.

“There is no doubt that in the last two decades of the liberation struggle Winnie Mandela carried the revolutionary aspirations of black communities on her shoulders. When silence, despondency, fear and political apathy triumphed over the collective spirit of emancipation following the exile of the liberation movement and the imprisonment of its leadership. It is Winnie Mandela who exhumed this collective spirit, inspiring every street, every township, every village, every town, every city and every country in the world to brave the murderous apartheid regime and once more demand the unconditional freedom of a black child.

Read more on the Caxton publication, The Citizen.