THE MANDELA divorce case has ended with complete victory for President Nelson Mandela after his wife of 38 years, Ms Winnie Mandela, failed to appear in court yesterday to demand a share of her husband's wealth.
Having granted Mr Mandela's petition for a divorce the day before, Judge Frikkie El off yesterday dismissed Ms Mandela's plea for a share of her former husband's estate when she failed to appear or to send a lawyer to represent her.
On Tuesday Ms Mandela had sacked her lawyer in open court in what appeared to be a last minute ploy to win a postponement of the case. When she failed to send representation yesterday the judge also awarded costs for the hearing against her.
Mr Mandela later announced he was waiving the costs and had instructed his lawyers to begin negotiating an ex gratia out of court to his former wife.
"I hope and trust that she will now be prepared to be reasonable . . . it can only be to her benefit," he said. "I am glad that the case is over and regret that my ex wife could not bring herself to negotiate an amicable settlement. It would have saved us both and our children much pain."
Mr Mandela first filed for divorce early last year but few observers expected the case to come to court. There was little doubt that Mr Mandela was entitled to a divorce under South African law. The couple had been formally separated for more than three years and Mr Mandela had a letter that seemed to prove his wife had committed adultery - and fraud - with a young lawyer employed by his African National Congress party.
Mr Mandela was very keen to settle the case out of court, and the world's media were caught by surprise when both he and Ms Mandela appeared in the Rand Supreme Court on Monday.
In the end, Ms Mandela's strange conduct in the case ensured that any arguments she may have had against the divorce were not presented. Her failure to present herself yesterday spared her husband's team from having to disclose the extent of his estate.
One local newspaper estimated that Mr Mandela was worth $10 million, but much of his income, including receipts from his bestselling autobiography Long Walk to Freedom, is thought to have been donated to his trust fund for abandoned children.
Reuters reported yesterday that court papers showed Mr Mandela had given $760,000 to his estranged wife over the past five years. This included money for her Soweto mansion and for the team of lawyers which in 1992 defended her against charges of complicity in the murder of a 14 year old Soweto boy, Stompie Seipei. Ms Mandela was convicted but her prison sentence was later reduced to a fine.
The Stompie case was the beginning of a steep decline for Ms Mandela, who had been the public face of the African National Congress while her husband was in prison. Since then she has been dogged by allegations of financial wrongdoing, including embezzlement of funds from the ANC.
Last year, she was sacked from her job as junior minister for arts after a series of breaches of party discipline. She remains an ANC member of parliament and the leading member of the party's black populist wing.