Thursday, Jun 27, 2013

By Patrick McGroarty and Devon Maylie

JOHANNESBURG--The life of Nelson Mandela appeared to hang in the balance Thursday, as family members visited the Pretoria hospital where he was undergoing treatment and neighbors from his rural ancestral town prepared for the passing of South Africa's former president.

"Yes, tata's situation is critical...he doesn't look good," the 94-year-old's oldest living daughter, Pumla Makaziwe Mandela, said in an interview Thursday on South African state television, using the local term of respect for an older person.

"But I think that for us as his children and grandchildren we still have this hope because you know when we talk to him he will flutter, trying to open his eyes and will open his eyes, when you touch him he still responds," she said.

Late Wednesday, President Jacob Zuma canceled plans to attend an infrastructure-investment conference in neighboring Mozambique, after conferring with Mr. Mandela's doctors at the Pretoria hospital where he was admitted on June 8 to treat a lung infection.

Mr. Zuma's spokesman, Mac Maharaj, wouldn't confirm news reports that Mr. Mandela is on life support, or say whether Mr. Zuma planned to visit him again on Thursday.

Mr. Mandela, a revered champion of peace and racial equality who became South Africa's first black, freely elected president in 1994, has been hospitalized four times since December and suffered a string of respiratory ailments stretching back to the tuberculosis he contracted during 27 years in prison for opposing South Africa's former white-minority government.

Dozens of reporters and satellite trucks have converged outside the Mediclinic Heart Hospital in Pretoria. They track every visit by family members and government officials--and capture the hopes and memories of well-wishers who have left a mounting pile of flowers, cards and balloons outside the hospital's gates.

In the pre-recorded interview Thursday morning with South Africa's state broadcaster, Ms. Mandela called the media scrum "racist"--and compared the journalists to vultures waiting to pick at the scraps of a fallen buffalo.

"I just think it's in bad taste, it's crass," she said. "Tata deserves his privacy and this family deserves that. If people say they really care about Nelson Mandela then they should respect that."

Mr. Zuma's office, the official conduit for all information on Mr. Mandela's health and treatment, has been criticized in the past for misleading journalists or downplaying the severity of Mr. Mandela's ailments.

In December reporters camped outside a military hospital in Pretoria for five days hoping for a glimpse of Mr. Mandela's visitors or medical team before Mr. Zuma's office told them he was at a different clinic in the capital. During his current stay in the hospital, the presidency described Mr. Mandela's condition as "serious but stable" for two weeks until reports surfaced that he was far sicker, and that his ambulance had broken down en route to the hospital on June 8. On Sunday, Mr. Zuma said Mr. Mandela's condition had deteriorated to "critical."

"People want to know how Mandela is doing," said Virgil Hector, a 62-year-old high school teacher from Cape Town who is vacationing in Pretoria this month and walked past the hospital. "We hope for the best."

Meanwhile, in Mr. Mandela's hometown of Qunu, in the Eastern Cape province, Mr. Mandela's neighbors said they are preparing for the inevitable.

"I'm very sad about him being in hospital," says Kekana Mangqwambi, sitting outside his son's round hut on Thursday morning getting a pumice foot wash. "Nelson used to call me to his house and we would chat."

Younger residents seized the chance to serve as impromptu tour guides for the dozens of visitors already streaming to the area. Truckers passing Qunu on their way between the larger towns of East London and Mthatha stopped to take photographs of Mr. Mandela's salmon pink house. Sheep with the letter 'M' dyed onto their wool grazed in front of his house.

Inside the vast compound, workers labored on a raised plot of land where residents said they believed Mr. Mandela would be buried.

Several family members traveled to Qunu on Tuesday for a meeting at Mr. Mandela's home. Bantu Holomisa, a family friend, said the meeting was to brief village elders on Mr. Mandela's health and to discuss news reports that the bodies of other Mandela family remains had been moved without consulting family elders.

South African officials have said Mr. Mandela's precarious condition will not upend the schedule of President Barack Obama's visit to South Africa this weekend.

Mr. Obama is visiting the West African nation of Senegal on Thursday, and is scheduled to arrive in Johannesburg on Friday evening. On Saturday morning he will meet Mr. Zuma in Pretoria and address students in Soweto. On Sunday he is scheduled to visit Robben Island, where Mr. Mandela was imprisoned by the white-minority regime, and to speak at the University of Cape Town.

"Of course our thoughts and our prayers are with President Mandela at this time of great concern among all of us in South Africa," Rob Davies, South Africa's trade minister, said Wednesday. "At the same time the visit of the United States' president is also very significant and important."

Write to Patrick McGroarty at patrick.mcgroarty@dowjones.com and Devon Maylie at devon.maylie@dowjones.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

27-06-13 1213GMT