Cornelius Petrus Mulder

Connie Mulder

Cornelius Petrus Mulder (born  June 5, 1925 in Warmbaths , Transvaal , †  January 12, 1988 in Johannesburg ), also known as Connie Mulder , was a South African politician during apartheid . From 1958 to 1978 he served as a member of parliament for the National Party and from 1968 as Minister of Information. In addition to the information department, he was later responsible as Minister for Plural Relations and Development for the implementation of apartheid policy among the black population. However, his involvement in a political scandal known as the Muldergate Affair led to his expulsion from the National Party and his retirement from office. Around seven months before his death, he won another parliamentary seat for the Conservative Party , which was positioned politically to the right of the National Party and was founded in the early 1980s.

Life

Connie Mulder was born in the Transvaal Province in 1925 and had 9 siblings. His father was a principal of Cedara Agricultural College . Mulder received his education in Potchefstroom and in Krugersdorp . He then took up studies at Potchefstroom University , which he completed with a BA degree and in 1945 with a teaching diploma. After completing his studies, he first taught history , Afrikaans and German in Randfontein . At the same time, Mulder studied at the University of the Witwatersrand and earned a doctorate in 1957 with a thesis on the influence of the Bible on the popular character of the Boers (original title: Die Invloed van die Bybel op die Vorming van die Afrikaanse Volkskarakter ).

In Randfontein, Mulder came into contact with local politics . There he worked as a local MP, later as Vice Mayor and finally as Mayor of this city. During this time he was involved in the National Party (NP), first in the youth organization Jeugbond , later as chairman of the NP regional division. In 1958 he was elected to the South African Parliament as a member of the Randfontein District. Ten years later he was appointed Minister for Information, Welfare, Pensions and Immigration. In the following period he also briefly took over the department of “ native administration ”, which was renamed “Ministry for Plural Relations and Development” during his tenure (1978). At that time he already had a reputation for being a conservative in the party nomenclature. In 1974 he was elected party leader ( Transvaal Leader ) in the Transvaal Province .

Connie Mulder was considered a possible successor to the Prime Minister Balthazar Johannes Vorster, who had been in office since 1966 . From 1977, however, triggered by publications by the daily newspaper Rand Daily Mail , his role in a political scandal known as the Muldergate affair , which ended his career in the National Party, was exposed. The background to the affair were attempts by the South African government, initiated by Mulder and his State Secretary Eschel Rhoodie , to use funds from the Ministry of Defense from 1973 to manipulate public opinion about apartheid at home and abroad through covert propaganda measures.

Mulder was subsequently forced to hand over information to Secretary of State Pik Botha on charges of telling the untruth to Parliament . In addition, he was defeated in the elections for the leadership of the National Party to his internal party rival Pieter Willem Botha , who in 1978 also took over the office of Prime Minister von Vorster. After a commission set up by Botha came to the conclusion in 1979 that there had been serious financial irregularities in the Information Ministry under Mulder's leadership, he withdrew from all political offices after his previous expulsion from the National Party. The Commission Steyn worked from 1979 proposals for the government in future be controlled media landscape in South Africa.

Mulder founded the " Action Front for National Priorities " in June 1979 with the aim of forming a new party whose main concern was the progressive territorial separation and self-determination of several South African population groups. The resulting National Conservative Party , of which Mulder was elected chairman in November 1979, achieved a result of 2.5 percent in the 1981 general election two years later . In the following years, it united with other right-wing parties to form the Conservative Party, which rose to become the leading opposition party in South Africa in the 1980s. Connie Mulder won another parliamentary seat for the Conservative Party in the May 1987 elections, but died in Johannesburg at the beginning of 1988 due to illness at the age of 62 .

family

Connie Mulder was married and had three sons and one daughter. His son Pieter Mulder has been chairman of the Freedom Front , founded in 1994 , which positions itself as a party to represent the interests of the Boers, since 2001 , and has been Vice Minister for Agriculture and Forestry in the government of President Jacob Zuma since 2009 . His son Corné Mulder is also politically active and has been a member of the South African Parliament as a member of the Freedom Front since 1994. As early as 1988 he was elected to parliament for the Conservative Party in the Randfontein district's by-election, which was made necessary by the death of his father.

literature

• Connie Mulder. In: Patricia Burgess: The Annual Obituary 1988. St James Press, Chicago 1990, ISBN 1-55862-050-8 , p. 42
• Died: Cornelius Mulder. In: Der Spiegel . Issue 3/1988 of January 18, 1988, p. 190
• Connie Mulder , In: Internationales Biographisches Archiv 12/1988 of March 14, 1988, in the Munzinger archive ( beginning of article freely available)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Shelagh Gastrow: Who's Who in South African Politics . Ravan Press, Johannesburg 1987, pp. 215-216, ISBN 0-86975-336-3

Web links

• South African History Online: Dr Connie Mulder. 1925−1988 biography (English, with picture)