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Jessie Duarte, who served as particular assistant to former South African President Nelson Mandela after his launch from jail, has died. She was 68.
Duarte’s loss of life on Sunday was introduced by the South Africa’s ruling celebration. She had been on medical depart since November present process most cancers therapy.
“It’s with profound unhappiness that the African Nationwide Congress has realized of the passing of our Deputy Secretary Normal, Yasmin ‘Jessie’ Duarte,” the ANC mentioned in a press release.
A number one political activist throughout the apartheid years, Duarte held a number of senior posts within the authorities and the ANC, which took energy underneath Mandela within the nation’s first multiracial elections in 1994. She fell ailing weeks after municipal elections wherein help for the ANC fell beneath 50% for the primary time.
Jesse Duarte, deputy secretary-general of the African Nationwide Congress celebration (ANC), speaks at a information convention throughout the 54th nationwide convention of the African Nationwide Congress celebration in Johannesburg, South Africa, on Sunday, December 17, 2017. The management convention of South Africa’s ruling African Nationwide Congress celebration has accepted the credentials of the delegates, opening the way in which for the beginning of voting to decide on the celebration’s prime officers, based on 5 individuals aware of the deliberations.
Born in Johannesburg on September 19, 1953, Duarte labored as a administration accountant, helped set up ladies’s buildings for the ANC within the Seventies and Nineteen Eighties, and was detained with out trial. She later grew to become a number one determine within the anti-apartheid United Democratic Entrance. Mandela appointed her as particular assistant when he was free of jail in 1990, a place she held till he grew to become president.
Duarte went on to function head of security and safety within the provincial cupboard within the central Gauteng area and spent eight years working for the Division of Overseas Affairs, changing into South Africa’s excessive commissioner to Mozambique. After exiting the diplomatic service in 2003, she was appointed the ANC’s spokeswoman after which served as chief operations officer within the Presidency till her resignation in 2010.
When the celebration elected Jacob Zuma as its chief for a second time period in 2012, Duarte was appointed its deputy secretary basic and was considered one in all his staunchest allies. Whereas Zuma’s nine-year tenure because the nation’s president was tainted by corruption scandals, Duarte retained her ANC put up after Cyril Ramaphosa succeeded him as its chief in late 2017.
Duarte was named the ANC’s performing secretary basic in Could 2021, when the incumbent Ace Magashule was suspended pending his trial on corruption fees.
Learn: Magashule loses bid to reverse ANC suspension
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