THE Bishop of Kimberley and Kuruman, Dr Winston Njongokulu Ndugane, has been elected to succeed Archbishop Desmond Tutu as Anglican Archbishop, of Cape Town.
Unlike Archbishop Tutu whose prominent role in the struggle against apartheid won him international acclaim and the Nobel Prize for Peace Bishop Ndugane is not well known outside his church.
Referred to as Bishop Winston and Bishop Njongo, depending on whether his European or African first name is used, the archbishop elect is the son of a priest he studied at King's College in London before becoming the principal of a seminary in Transkei and, later, the Bishop of Kimberley and Kuruman in the and western half of South Africa.
An electoral college made up of clergymen and laymen preferred him to Dr Duncan Buchanan, the Bishop of Johannesburg, who, in terms of experience and the size and wealth of his bishopric, might have been considered the senior of the two candidates.
Archbishop Tutu, who formally bade farewell to his flock last Sunday, retires as head of the Anglican Church in Southern Africa in September.
He will, however, complete his task as chairman of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission before leaving in about 18 months to take a fellowship in Atlanta, Georgia. In his farewell sermon he made a plea for peace and warned that crime, corruption and greed could destroy South Africa's fledgling democracy.
Archbishop Tutu angered President Nelson Mandela in 1994 by accusing the ANC of climbing aboard the gravy train instead of derailing it.