Mandela was too soft on white people, says Mugabe

Former South African president Nelson Mandela was “too soft” on the country’s white population, according to Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe in an interview to be aired next weekend.

Africa’s longest-serving president spoke on topics ranging from British prime ministers Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair to the reasons why he cheated on his first wife, Sally, in the years leading up to her death.

But the interview for the South African Broadcasting Company will be most enthralling to South Africans for Mr Mugabe’s views on Mr Mandela, whom he believes was not hard enough when it came to land reform. “Mandela has gone a bit too far in doing good to the non-black communities, really in some cases at the expense of blacks,” he said.

"That's being too saintly, too good, too much of a saint," South Africa's Sunday Independent quoted him as saying.

Mr Mugabe implemented a harsh land reform policy in 2000 that saw thousands of white farmers thrown off their land with little or no compensation. Observers say his actions contributed to the economic collapse that followed.

When talking about former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher, who died in April, he insisted he preferred her to Tony Blair.

“Mrs Thatcher, you could trust her. But of course what happened later was a different story with the Labour Party and Blair, who you could never trust,” said Mr Mugabe.

Mr Mugabe (89) also gave the reasons behind his affair with current wife, Grace, during the early 1990s .

“As Sally was still going through her last few days, although it might have appeared to some as cruel, I said to myself ‘well, it’s not just myself needing children, my mother has all the time said, ‘Am I going to die without seeing grandchildren?’,” he recalled.