Bantu Holomisa: The Game Changer

by Bantu Holomisa

Bantu Holomisa is one of South Africa’s most respected and popular political figures. Born in the Transkei in 1955, he attended an elite school for the sons of chiefs and headmen. While other men his age were joining Umkhonto weSizwe, Holomisa enrolled in the Transkeian Defence Force and rose rapidly through the ranks. As head of the Transkeian Defence Force, Holomisa led successive coups against the homeland regimes and then became the head of its military government. He turned the Transkei into a ‘liberated space’, giving shelter to ANC and PAC activists, and declared his intention of holding a referendum on the reincorporation of the Transkei into South Africa. These actions brought him immense popularity and the military dictator became a liberation hero for many South Africans. When the unbanned ANC held its first election for its national executive in 1994, Holomisa, who had by now joined the party, received the most votes, beating long-time veterans and party stalwarts. He and Mandela developed a close relationship, and Holomisa served in Mandela’s cabinet as deputy minister for environmental affairs and tourism. As this biography reveals, the relationship with both Mandela and the ANC broke down after Holomisa testified before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, among other issues, that Stella Sigcau and her cabinet colleagues had accepted a bribe from Sol Kerzner. After being expelled from the ANC, Holomisa formed his own party, the United Democratic Movement, with Roelf Meyer. As leader of the UDM, Holomisa has played a prominent role in building coalitions among opposition parties and in leading important challenges to the dominant party. This biography, written in collaboration with Holomisa, presents an engaging and revealing account of a man who has made his mark as a game changer in South African politics.

426 pages, Kindle Edition

Published November 1, 2018

Reviews

[Shonanne · Rating 5 out of 5]

Insight into more than the man

Should be compulsory reading for all South Africans, for a general, light, but honest review of what is past and a guide to hope for what might yet be. Thank you Eric Naki for this.

[David Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bantu Holomisa is a founding father of democratic South Africa. Author and journalist Eric Naki provides the timeline that includes Holomisa's creation of South Africa's first liberated zone in the Transkei. An anti-corruption champion, Holomisa's refusal to back down on exposing graft would lead to expulsion from the ANC and a bitter propaganda war between Luthuli House and a man who many would say, including the writer of this review, espouses the original core values of the ruling party.
If History becomes a compulsory subject in South Africa, Naki's book should be on the required reading list. To understand what was happening in the Transkei in the 1980s helps to understand what prompted the release of Mandela in 1990 and the decision to hold the first free elections in 1994.

[Amitabh Mitra · Rating 5 out of 5]

I met Major General Bantu Holomisa in 1991 in the capital, Umtata of the Republic of Transkei. I was working as an Orthopaedic Surgeon under Professor Mc Connachie in Umtata and Bedford Orthopaedic Hospitals. I came from Bulawayo where I was working as a Registrar in Mpilo Central Hospital in the black township of Mzilikazi. Before that I worked in Niamey as an United Nations Voluteer Orthopaedic Surgeon in Niger. Transkei, the former Bantustan republic was a comfortable place to work and had an easy accessibility to all bureaucrats including its President Major General Bantu Holomisa. I saw him moving around and greeting people without any bodyguards and solving people’s problem immediately. The hospitals and far flanged clinics were well stocked with essential medicine, equipments and health care professionals. Experienced doctors from all around developed countries visited the hospitals for a remarkable Africa experience. During my period in Umtata, I was selected by University of Pretoria and South African Military Health Service to do specialization in Aerospace Medicine. Democracy came in South Africa in 1994 and the African National Congress was chosen by the people to lead the country. I joined the Cecilia Makiwane Hospital in the black township of Mdantsane and continued working in Orthopaedic Surgery till 2010 after which I was appointed as Head of Emergency Medicine and Thuthuzela Gender Violence centre. A lot happened during this period. Umtata was renamed as Mthatha and the University of Transkei was named as Walter Sisulu University which has medical school attached to it.

Major General Bantu Holomisa formed the United Democratic Movement (UDM) with Roelf Meyer for a greater freedom and employments to the common people. In 27 June 1998, the National Management Committee of the UDM declared, Major General Bantu Holomisa as its President and Deputy President was Roelf Meyer. This was a party brought in place as an opposition to the African National Congress. During the period of African National Congress, street violence went sky high and this all because of improper governance and corruption. I retired from my active service in 2023. During the same time I saw a difficult change. The victims of sexual assault and rape had become close to eight per day of which more than half were children below the age of sixteen. The 2024 is vitally important as the country goes to polls on 29 May, there are now more than thousand doctors unemployed among which are my daughter and son in law and doctors fleeing to developed countries among which is my son who resigned from Kimberley hospital. I participated in UDM rallies with the Major General and his team for this dream of having a political organization in the province and centre which will have easy accessibility for our youths and elderly and a promise of reconstitution the rainbow nation once of Madiba.

References

A Better Future – Bantu Holomisa and Roelf Meyer
Bantu Holomisa, The Game Changer An Authorized biography by Eric Naki

[Sara · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really wanted to learn more about one of South Africa's important leaders, but this book is just so very dry that I dreaded reading for almost 2 weeks (and I tend to read 2 books a week) until I gave up. I suppose I'll have to be happy only knowing 37% about him.