Helen Suzman is widely regarded as an unsentimental liberal — one who has always spoken the truth to those in power in South Africa.
For 36 years she nipped at the heels of the apartheid government, urging reforms that would bring about an improvement in the lives of millions of disenfranchised blacks.
Today, the veteran opposition politician says she is ”tremendously disappointed” with the post-apartheid administration she envisaged during her long time in the national assembly of a pariah state.
”South Africa has only partly turned out to be the kind of democracy I hoped to live to see,” she told a Johannesburg-based newspaper on the eve of her 85th birthday.
The government has failed to eradicate corruption and nepotism, rampant crime and rigid labour laws have turned investors away and South African President Thabo Mbeki has ”weird” ideas on Aids, she said.
She also believes, Mbeki’s ”quiet diplomacy” in the ailing neighbouring Zimbabwe has not worked.
From 1959 to 1974 she became the sole opposition member of parliament for the liberal Progressive Party (PP) that later evolved into the Democratic Party, the forerunner to the Democratic Alliance (DA).
Over the next decade as she alone occupied the opposition seats in parliament, she would earn a reputation internationally as the ”conscience” of apartheid South Africa.
She braved hatred, hostility and ridicule to have her say as one of the few opposition voices in parliament while showing concern for the general hardships of the majority black population.
In the house of assembly, she spoke out in disgust about the living conditions of black migrant labourers. She defended the Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu when security police wanted to confiscate his passport.
She visited prisons and forged lasting friendships with political detainees like Nelson Mandela long before it became fashionable among white South Africans.
”Apart from being a major figure in parliament, she kept contact with voters. She performed a very unique function,” says former colleague Brian Goodall.
At a time when laws were being tightened, amended and corrupted to keep black people at bay, Suzman showed a remarkable ability to ”keep track of endless debates while writing 20 or 30 letters”.
One of the letters she is most remembered for is a postcard she sent while on a visit to Moscow. It was addressed to ”Comrade Louis Le Grange” – her Afrikaner nationalist archrival who was minister of law and order.
Eight years after the first all race elections that saw the advent of democracy in the southern African nation, Suzman is no longer on the benches of parliament.
But the woman once singled out in parliament as ”the best man in the house” by one of her detractors, former Prime Minister John Vorster, has left her mark on the opposition tradition.
”When I was a 17-year-old schoolboy helping out in her 1974 election campaign, she was my idol, said Tony Leon, leader of the DA, the main opposition party. Leon succeeded Suzman in 1989. He was at her side in May when she received the Liberal International Prize in Budapest, on of several international prizes awarded to her over the years.
”She had just had major heart surgery and suffers osteoporosis, but there she was as energetic as every,” he said.
The DA, to which Suzman is still aligned, is increasingly seen as an opposition entity with much of her energy, as much to say but with very little influence.
It was bizarre and ironic that people who fought tooth and nail against apartheid had become the bedfellows of the ruling party, said Leon.
”People with grave credentials like Helen (Suzman) tend to be brushed aside,” he said.
Helen Suzman was born in the industrial district of Germiston east of Johannesburg in 1917. She attended a convent school in the city and later graduated with a Bachelor of Commerce degree from the University of the Witwatersrand.
After World War II, she lectured economic history at the University of the Witwatersrand — a post she held for eight years.
In 1953 she was elected to the position as United Party (UP) MP for the affluent suburb of Houghton. In 1959 she and several others walked out of the centrist UP and formed the Progressive Party.
She was the longest-serving and most senior member of parliament when she retired from active politics in 1989. – Sapa-DPA