Walter Felgate

Walter Sidney Felgate (19 November 1930 – 3 January 2008) was a South African politician, businessman, and anthropologist. He served in the National Assembly from 1994 to 1997 and then in the KwaZulu-Natal Provincial Legislature from 1998 until his retirement in 2003.

After becoming involved in anti-apartheid politics through the Christian Institute, Felgate rose to prominence through his affiliation with the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) and its leader, Mangosuthu Buthelezi. He was a speechwriter and close confidante of Buthelezi and later represented the party during the negotiations to end apartheid and subsequent constitutional negotiations. Although he was viewed as an IFP hardliner, he resigned from the party and from his parliamentary seat in August 1997. In subsequent months, he implicated Buthelezi in state-sponsored political violence, including in testimony to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

Upon leaving the IFP in 1997, Felgate joined the African National Congress, which nominated him to serve in the KwaZulu-Natal Legislature from July 1998. He retired in February 2003.

Early life and apartheid-era career Felgate was born on 19 November 1930 in Pretoria in the former Transvaal. After matriculating from Pretoria Boys High School in 1949, However, his studies were disrupted by his marriage; with his wife, he went to live in Ndola, in what was then Northern Rhodesia, and then moved to the South Coast of Natal, where he worked as a railway clerk for seven years.

Academia In 1959, Felgate returned to university, enrolling at the University of Natal to study social anthropology under Eileen Krige. For his postgraduate research, he studied the Tembe-Tsonga, initially on the South African side of the Mozambican border; however, his final research was completed in Mozambique, where he studied the dagga cash-crop industry of the Tembe. According to Felgate, he fell out with Krige over his research, as he refused to publish his findings on the grounds that they could incriminate the Tembe. However, according to Felgate, he did not start working for Inkatha until 1978; he thereafter became Buthelezi's principal speechwriter, employed as a civil servant in Buthelezi's office in the government of the KwaZulu bantustan. He was viewed as a "hardliner",

Post-apartheid political career

National Assembly: 1994–1997 The IFP aborted its election boycott at the last minute and Felgate was elected to represent the IFP in the new National Assembly. He continued to represent the IFP in constitutional negotiations – now leading up to the adoption of the 1996 Constitution – and continued to be viewed as a hardliner. He was absent for much of 1995 while he recovered from triple-bypass surgery.

In August 1997, Felgate announced that he had resigned from the IFP to join the ANC. He said that he had been driven to leave by the IFP's lack of internal democracy and by the party's recent decision to withdraw from an IFP–ANC peace process in KwaZulu-Natal. The testimony was provided in camera but was leaked to the Mail & Guardian.

KwaZulu-Natal Legislature: 1998–2003 Felgate returned to legislative politics in July 1998, when he was sworn in to an ANC seat in the KwaZulu-Natal Provincial Legislature. While serving in the seat, in March 1999, he was attacked by a group of anonymous men at a voter registration site in Mbonambi: he suffered head injuries from a beating with a steel pipe and was also shot at, though the shots missed. The ANC's Bheki Ntuli claimed that the men were associates of a local IFP politician. In the general election in June that year, Felgate was narrowly elected to a full term in the provincial legislature. he resigned from the provincial legislature in February 2003. He died on 3 January 2008 in Johannesburg after a short illness.