Colourful moments in Mosiuoa ‘Terror’ Lekota’s political life

From rocking up at a hostile IFP hostel with ibheshu and brandy to campaign for the ANC, to eating a hat after his party’s election blunder, Mosiuoa Lekota wasn’t shy to push the envelope. Lekota passed away in hospital on Wednesday morning at the age of 77. GenZ might not necessarily know who Lekota is and his contribution to the Struggle, but they will certainly know a meme of a crying man wiping his tears with a tissue while a fellow comrade consoles him.

Lekota lived his life in line with his alias “Terror”, but during his party’s 2018 press briefing he showed his soft side when he wept in defence of his comrade who had fought against apartheid and held their own during the Codesa negotiations in 1991. Codesa was a multi-party negotiation that laid the groundwork for SA’s transition from apartheid to a non-racial democracy. At the time of Lekota’s press briefing there was a lot of criticism that current political failures were a result of them “selling out” at the Codesa.

This led to Lekota becoming visibly emotional in front of the cameras. “Many of our young people were hung there (in Pretoria). What’s so sad is that we faced death …

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Now we have all these little kids and some of the people who are actually old enough to know (who are criticising Codesa) … Codesa was not a sell-out. The commitment made to the people was that‚ when the right moment comes‚ we will negotiate a settlement and we went to do that,” he said, clutching his wet tissue.

Lekota was not shy at making bold statements in front of the camera. During the 2014 election campaign, Lekota confidently predicted that his party, COPE, would increase its support compared to previous elections. In demonstrating his belief that his party would succeed, Lekota told the press conference that he would“eat a hat”if it failed to do better.

Unfortunately, for him, the party’s support plummeted even further. True to his word, when he arrived at the Results Operations Centre in Pretoria, a grey hat was offered, along with tomato sauce. He bit into the hat but had nothing to swallow.

But he kept his word and gave a light moment to an intense election campaign. At one point Lekota was one of then-Inkatha president Mangosuthu Buthelezi’s worst tormentors, and during his time as an ANC convenor in the early 1990s, Lekota was tasked with re-launching the ANC in KwaZulu-Natal, Buthelezi’s stronghold at the time.

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