Incoming Minister of Housing Brigitte Mabandla has been universally praised for her intelligence and personal warmth — but questions have been raised about her administrative abilities.
A former artist described her as a “large, overwhelming, warm African earth mother”. Deputy minister of arts, culture, science and technology for seven years, Mabandla endeared herself to the artistic fraternity.
She succeeds outgoing minister Sankie Mthembi-Mahanyele, who quit her Cabinet post to take over as the African National Congress’s deputy secretary general.
Mabandla (54) walked a tightrope between disgruntled apartheid administrators and public opinion while dissolving apartheid’s regional arts councils, but was still “well liked” by people across the racial spectrum, sources said.
Her ability to work with people of all kinds was evidenced by her close collaboration with two Inkatha Freedom Party ministers, Ben Ngubane and Lionel Mtshali, without “political hassles”.
Ngubane, the current Minister of Arts, Culture, Science and Technology, said Mabandla had a “very broad understanding of arts and a great sense of the role of women in science”.
He said she had managed to integrate and unite the arts fraternity across the racial and cultural divide.
Mabandla surprised many in the arts community when she attended the funeral of alternative Afrikaans musician Johannes Kerkorrel (Ralph Rabie) last year.
Mabandla’s single biggest achievement in her former portfolio was bringing the remains of the enslaved Hottentot woman Saartjie Bartman from a museum in France back to South Africa.
Politically, Mabandla belongs to President Thabo Mbeki’s inner circle, although “not his inner, inner circle”, said an ANC insider.
Like Mbeki, she comes from an ANC exile background, joining the movement while studying law in Zambia and becoming its legal adviser in Lusaka.
She returned to South Africa in 1990 to join the University of the Western Cape’s Community Law Centre as coordinator of projects on the rights of women and children. But she became better known as a member of the ANC’s negotiating team at Codesa.
A member of the ANC’s national executive committee, Mabandla was deployed to the Free State last year. ANC Free State chairperson Ace Magashule described her as an “extremely hard-working comrade”, adding that her promotion was “purely based on merit”. Colleagues in Parliament described Mabandla as a “pleasant comrade”.
However, artists expressed doubts about her capability as an administrator, while agreeing she was a good figurehead. She is known to enjoy a tipple.
Political observers pointed out that most policy issues in housing had been finalised in the past eight years. Mabandla would, therefore, mainly pursue the implementation of existing policies, “so there should not be too much pressure on her”, one said.
Mabandla’s successor as Deputy Minister of Arts, Culture, Science and Technology, Buyelwa Sonjica (52), former chairperson of Parliament’s portfolio committee on water affairs and forestry, was described as a “stable and hard-working activist”.
A former United Democratic Front member from the Eastern Cape, Sonjica became politically involved in the anti-apartheid struggle through the Black Consciousness Movement.
She has the credentials for her new portfolio, having headed the ANC’s arts department in the old Eastern Cape region. She was also involved in the development of the party’s arts policy under poet Wally Serote’s leadership.