Mzansi’s first Speaker Dr Frene Ginwala dies

South Africans have joined together in paying tribute to the late Dr Frene Ginwala, the founding Speaker of South Africa’s democratic Parliament and Esteemed Member of the Order of Luthuli.

Dr Ginwala passed away at her at home on Thursday (January 12) at the age of 90, following a stroke two weeks ago.

Born on 25 April 1932, Frene Noshir Ginwala served the anti-apartheid struggle and South Africa’s democratic dispensation in a diversity of roles as a lawyer, academic, political leader, activist and journalist.

She was the first woman in the history of South Africa to be elected and serve as the Speaker of Parliament, the first among the formerly oppressed people of our country to be sworn into such high office and serve as the first Speaker of the inaugural democratic Parliament of South Africa.

“On behalf of the nation and of the legislative, executive and judicial components of the State, the President offers his sincere condolences to Dr Ginwala’s family, her nephews Cyrus, Sohrab and Zavareh, and their families,” President Ramaphosa said in a statement on Friday, January 13.

The President further extended his condolences to Dr Ginwala’s friends, colleagues and associates in South Africa and beyond.

“Today we mourn the passing of a formidable patriot and leader of our nation, and an internationalist to whom justice and democracy around the globe remained an impassioned objective to her last days.

“Among the many roles she adopted in the course of a life she led to the full, we are duty-bound to recall her establishment of our democratic Parliament which exercised the task of undoing decades-old apartheid legislation and fashioning the legislative foundations of the free and democratic South Africa.

“Many of the rights and material benefits South Africans enjoy today have their origins in the legislative programme of the inaugural democratic Parliament under Dr. Ginwala’s leadership, with Nelson Mandela occupying the seat of the first President to be elected by the democratic Parliament,” the President said.

President Ramaphosa further said that Frene Ginwala epitomised the ethos and expectations of the then fledgling Constitution and played an important role in building the capacity of Parliament through the transformation of activists and leaders into lawmakers who were in turn able to transform our country.

“Dr Ginwala was similarly influential and instrumental in shaping the advancement of democracy and the entrenchment of democratic political processes and fundamental socio-economic rights in the Southern African Development Community and the continent at large.

“Beyond African shores, she positioned our young democracy both as one that had as much to contribute to as it had to learn from global precedents and experience.

“We have lost another giant among a special generation of leaders to whom we owe our freedom and to whom we owe our commitment to keep building the South Africa to which they devoted their all,” the President said.

In 2005, Dr Ginwala was honoured with the Order of Luthuli in Silver for her excellent contribution to the struggle against gender oppression and her tireless contribution to the struggle for a non-sexist, non-racial, just and democratic South Africa.

Government respects the family’s wishes for a private funeral and details of an official memorial event will be announced in due course.

The Thabo Mbeki Foundation also shared their words of condolences to the late Dr Ginwala.

“Uncompromisingly wedded to principle, Comrade Frene was an exemplary leader who served our country and its people with distinction, both before and during South Africa’s democratic transition and development. In her activism spanning over many decades, she served the liberation movement in various capacities, including as a journalist, an academic, as head of the political research unit in Oliver Tambo’s office and as an official spokesperson of the ANC in the UK.

“The Patron of the TMF, President Thabo Mbeki, our Board and Staff would like to convey our deepest condolences to Comrade Frene Ginwala’s family and her Movement the ANC,” the foundation said.