The post-democracy founding speaker of the National Assembly, Dr Frene Ginwala, has died. The President announced in a statement that Ginwala, aged 90, had passed away on Thursday after having a stroke two weeks earlier.
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Dr Ginwala served as the Speaker of Parliament for a decade, from 1994 until 2004.
The Presidency’s statement said, “On behalf of the nation and of the legislative, executive, and judicial components of the State, the President offers his sincere condolences to Dr Ginwala’s family, her nephews Cyrus, Sohrab, and Zavareh, and their families.”
“The President extends his condolences to Dr Ginwala’s friends, colleagues, and associates in South Africa and beyond.”
“Today we mourn the passing of a formidable patriot and leader of our nation, and an internationalist to whom justice and democracy around the globe remained an impassioned objective to her last days,” the president added.
“Among the many roles, she adopted in the course of a life she led to the full, we are duty-bound to recall her establishment of our democratic Parliament which exercised the task of undoing decades-old apartheid legislation and fashioning the legislative foundations of the free and democratic South Africa.”
In 2005, she was awarded the Silver Order of Luthuli for her outstanding work in the fight against gender inequality and her unwavering support for a democratic, nonsexist, and nonracial South Africa.
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Picture: @PresidencyZA / Twitter