ANC Candidate List Includes Winnie Mandela

Winnie Mandela was on the ANC’s list of candidates for South Africa’s first all-race election despite a 1991 kidnaping conviction, along with several whites, Indians and people of mixed race.

As expected, Nelson Mandela headed the ANC’s list of 200 candidates for Parliament, which was announced Friday. The African National Congress is considered the likely winner of the April 27 elections.

The inclusion of whites, Indians and people of mixed race on the list drawn from ANC chapters across the country reflects the group’s desire to portray itself as a multiracial organization.

But the overwhelming majority of candidates were black activists who made their names in the anti-apartheid struggle by going to prison, fleeing into exile or challenging the white-minority government as leaders of black labor groups.

President Frederik W. de Klerk’s National Party said Friday that the list poses “a grave danger to South Africa” because more than half of the 50 top candidates had ties to the South African Communist Party.

Mrs. Mandela is the 31st candidate, confirming that the ANC leadership has decided her conviction was based on a political crime.

ANC rules ban convicted criminals from running for election unless their crimes were politically motivated.

Her inclusion is sure to draw criticism from opposing parties.

De Klerk’s National Party has already run a full-page newspaper ad criticizing Mrs. Mandela’s possible election.

A court in 1991 convicted Mrs. Mandela of kidnaping four young men and assisting in assaulting them. One of the victims was later found dead, and Mrs. Mandela’s bodyguard was convicted of his murder.