Mandela was reported to have made several clandestine visits to Mrs Machel’s home overlooking the sea in the Mozambican capital of Maputo. Then five weeks ago South African press speculation reached frenzy point after Mandela finished his pop-star-like visit to Britain and headed for France. The formidable Graca, 28 years his junior and described by her many admirers as possessing enough charm to warm any man’s heart, was rather more straightforward She denied the rumours outright. Widowed for a decade, she had no plans to marry Nelson, she said.While the president apparently teased close friends about the veracity of the stories, Graca, as much of a heroine in Mozambique as Mandela is a hero in South Africa, was clearly irritated by the persistent speculation.
A tireless advocate for the hundreds of thousands of children who have died and suffered Africa’s wars, she would hold a UNICEF press conference to highlight a new report, only to find that all the journalists wanted to talk about was love and the president.The rumours persisted. Even as he faced the indignity of an open court statement about the emptiness and lack of intimacy in his marriage, it was reported that Mandela was already in love with someone else and had plans to remarry.Mandela, or Madiba as he is affectionately known in South Africa, was characteristically tight-lipped about the speculation, being old fashioned and stiff about matters of the heart. This weekend, President Mandela and Graca Machel, widow of Mozambique’s former president Samora Machel, at last decided to make public their romance. The couple, the South African Sunday Independent reported, have become intimate and plan to spend more time together, but do not intend to marry.
It has been a coy process: for 12 months there have been rumours, beginning during the president’s divorce from his second wife, Winnie.
But now the spray painters and tree carvers can get to work, for Nelson loves Graca, OK – and that’s official. Mr Kerr is in prison awaiting trial on a charge relating to a loyalist paramilitary organisation. Mr Wright declared: “How can they call themselves loyalists if they carry out this attack on loyalist pensioners?” Billy Hutchinson, a spokesman for the Progressive Unionist Party, one of the organisations at odds with Mr Wright, called the attack “dirty tricks” by loyalist dissidents David McKittrick. The rumours have persisted for a year, rising every so often to tickle a nation in love with its 78 year old terrorist-turned-legend and president.
