Winnie Wants Mandela's Ancestral Home

The ex-wife of South Africa's first black President Nelson Mandela has demanded his village home for her children, potentially triggering the first legal dispute since his death. 

Winnie Madikizela-Mandela's lawyers said she was asserting her "customary rights" by demanding the house.

Mr Mandela's estate was provisionally valued at 46m rand ($4.3m; £2.5m) following his death in December.

The thrice-married Mr Mandela divorced Mrs Madikizela-Mandela in 1996.

The couple had two daughters, Zinzi and Zenani.


Mr Mandela has one surviving child, Makaziwe, from his first marriage to the late Evelyn Mase.
He was married to Graca Machel, the wife of Mozambique's late President Samora Machel, at the time of his death.

'Mandela family unity'
 
His large family - which includes grandchildren and great grandchildren - was hit by legal disputes over his wealth and burial site as he battled a recurring lung infection in the months leading to his death at the age of 95.

In his will, the ex-president said: "The Qunu property should be used by my family in perpetuity in order to preserve the unity of the Mandela family."

The executor of the will, South Africa's Deputy Chief Justice Dikgang Moseneke, has not yet commented on the letter sent to him by Mvuzo Notyesi Incorporated, the legal firm representing Mrs Madikizela-Mandela.

In the letter, the lawyers said Mrs Madikizela-Mandela obtained the house in Qunu while he was in jail for fighting white minority rule.

"The view we hold is that the aforesaid property belongs to the generation of Mr Nelson Mandela and Mrs Winnie Madikizela-Mandela as their common and parental home," it said.

 Most South Africans will be hoping that differences over Nelson Mandela's home in Qunu will be amicably resolved. Otherwise, there could be a long drawn-out battle, sullying the reputation of everyone involved - not least that of Mrs Madikizela-Mandela.

Winnie Wants Mandela's Ancestral Home