Battle for Winnie’s estate reaches crucial phase

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The bitter legal battle over the estate of anti-apartheid icon Winnie Madikizela-Mandela has entered a decisive new phase after the Johannesburg high court ordered her grandson, Zondwa “Gadaffi” Mandela, to file his heads of argument within seven days or risk having his application dismissed.

In an order handed down on June 10, the court directed Mandela, the applicant in the main application, to deliver his written legal arguments within seven days from the date the order is served on him. Should he fail to do so, his aunt, Zenani Dlamini, will be entitled to return to court seeking an order dismissing his application.

While procedural in nature, the ruling ratchets up pressure in a family feud that has dragged on for years over who should control the administration of Madikizela-Mandela’s estate, which remains unresolved more than eight years after her death.

At the centre of the dispute is Mandela’s bid to stop the master of the high court from removing him as co-executor of the estate while seeking Dlamini’s removal from the same position.

In papers filed before the Gauteng High Court in Johannesburg, Mandela also asks that, if Dlamini is not removed, the court appoint an independent senior advocate nominated by the Legal Practice Council to administer the estate alongside him.

According to his founding affidavit, such an appointment would be “entirely independent to the parties” and would “be able to break the deadlock that has arisen between Zenani and me in the administration of the estate”, which, he says, would “allow for an expedient winding-up of the estate”.

Mandela further wants Dlamini compelled to hand over all estate property under her control, together with banking records, insurance policies, investment documents, correspondence with financial institutions and commercial agreements relating to the estate.

The application traces the origins of the dispute to the death of Mandela’s mother, Zindzi Mandela, who had been appointed co-executor alongside her sister, Dlamini, after Madikizela-Mandela’s death in April 2018.

From or about November 2020 to June 2021, neither Zenani nor (late lawyer Ismail) Ayob did anything to progress the winding-up of the estate. Instead ... Zenani engaged in a designed and deliberate stratagem to denude the estate of its assets, to the detriment of the other beneficiaries (including my siblings and me).
— Zondwa Mandela

Mandela says that after his mother’s death in October 2020, he and his siblings inherited her 50% interest in the estate and became entitled to participate in its administration.

Instead, he alleges, Dlamini attempted to administer the estate without consulting the beneficiaries or advancing the winding-up process.

“From or about November 2020 to June 2021, neither Zenani nor (late lawyer Ismail) Ayob did anything to progress the winding-up of the estate. Instead ... Zenani engaged in a designed and deliberate stratagem to denude the estate of its assets, to the detriment of the other beneficiaries (including my siblings and me),” Mandela alleges.

He claims that his attorneys were forced to intervene after beneficiaries became aware that estate assets had allegedly been removed from the family home.

According to correspondence attached to his affidavit, the beneficiaries complained that “assets in the estate had been removed from the familial home, and whereabouts unknown”; that they had “been excluded from receiving information regarding the estate”, that “decisions had been taken without our consultation” and that artworks and pictures belonging to the estate had been moved to unknown locations.

Mandela argues these concerns justified his appointment as co-executor to safeguard the interests of his late mother’s heirs.

But Dlamini’s answering affidavit presents a sharply different version of events.

Rather than portraying Mandela as a wronged beneficiary, Dlamini argues that his appointment as co-executor should never have happened because she had already been lawfully appointed sole executrix of the estate after Zindzi Mandela’s death.

“The applicant relies upon letters of executorship granted by the master on December 3 2021 appointing him as a co-executor of the deceased estate ... This appointment was unlawfully made,” Dlamini states.

She argues that the master of the high court exceeded his statutory powers by appointing Mandela alongside her.

“Whatever the circumstances that may have led to the grant of the letters of executorship on December 3 2021 ... the master, with respect, had no power to appoint a co-executor. There is no provision in the act that provides for same.”

She concludes: “In the circumstances, the appointment of the applicant as co-executor pursuant to the letters of executorship granted by the master on December 3 2021 was unlawful.”

Dlamini also accuses Mandela of bypassing her during the process that resulted in his appointment.

“That letter was addressed to the master only and not to me or my attorneys, denying me an opportunity to comment thereupon. I was denied this opportunity notwithstanding the adverse but incorrect statements and allegations made,” she says.

The affidavit further alleges that Mandela frustrated attempts to engage constructively over the administration of the estate.

“The modus operandi of the applicant is to avoid attending any meeting at which constructive engagement can take place, whether to explain his appointment as co-executor or to advance the administration of the deceased estate,” Dlamini alleges.

In a further attack on Mandela’s suitability to oversee the estate, Dlamini relies on findings made by the high court in the Aurora Empowerment Systems litigation, in which Mandela was among the respondents.

Quoting extensively from that judgment, she points to findings that the respondents “must have known from the first moment that they would wreak havoc in the miners’ lives through their actions, yet they pressed ahead”, adding that their conduct “was indisputably reckless”.

She also cites another passage in which the court concluded that the respondents were “guilty of wilful deception by presenting the bid documents containing numerous false assertions” to the liquidators.

Those findings, Dlamini argues, are relevant when considering Mandela’s fitness to continue acting as co-executor.

The court’s latest order does not decide the merits of the dispute or determine who should ultimately administer the estate. Instead, it seeks to move the long-running litigation towards finality by compelling Mandela to advance his case.

If he fails to comply, Dlamini will be entitled to approach the court, on the same papers supplemented where necessary, for an order dismissing his application entirely.

The outcome could determine not only who controls one of South Africa’s most historically significant estates, but also whether a family dispute that has lingered for years can finally move towards resolution.