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Of: TT
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Photo: John Parkin / AP / TT
An image from 1994 when Nelson Mandela cast his vote in South Africa’s first democratic elections. Stock Photography.
South Africa’s ruling ANC party strongly condemns the “disparaging remarks” allegedly made by US President Donald Trump about the country’s first democratically elected president, Nelson Mandela.
This weekend, the Washington Post reported on some of the contents of a book written by former Trump personal attorney Michael Cohen. In the book, to be published this week, Cohen claims he expressed blatant racism to his former employer about his representative Barack Obama and Nelson Mandela.
Among other things, Trump is said to have said that he does not consider Mandela a “real leader” and that “Mandela sabotaged the entire country. Now he’s a shit hole.”
“Hardly a role model”
“All the freedom-loving people of the world are horrified by these insulting words … which come from a person who is not directly a role model in terms of competent leadership,” the ANC said in a statement Tuesday.
“Trump is divisive, misogynistic and disrespectful,” the ANC continued, adding in the statement that Mandela “was in stark contrast to Trump,” who “understood the value of international friendship.”
On Monday, the Nelson Mandela Foundation took note of the statements attributed to the president of the United States and stated in a statement that “leaders who behave as Trump does” are not qualified to make authoritative comments “on the life and work of Mandela. .
White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany comments on the ANC’s harsh words about her boss, describing Michael Cohen as a “disgraced criminal” and an “excluded attorney.”
Cohen worked for Trump until 2018, but was later charged with a financial crime, in part linked to Trump’s business, and sentenced to three years in prison. Due to the covid pandemic, he is now serving that sentence under house arrest.
“Profit from the lies”
“He has lost all credibility and it is not surprising to see his latest attempt to profit from the lies,” McEnany wrote in an email to the AFP news agency on Tuesday.
Nelson Mandela was elected the first black president of South Africa in 1994. He had previously been imprisoned for almost three decades by the then apartheid regime. After his five-year tenure, Mandela resigned from the presidency.
He died in December 2013, at the age of 95.
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