David Seymour’s claim Nelson Mandela would campaign for Act rubbished by grandson

Act Party leader MP David Seymour. Photo / Paul Taylor

Nelson Mandela’s grandson has rubbished claims the anti-apartheid activist would have campaigned for the Act Party if he were alive today.

Act leader David Seymour gave a speech in rural Tasman on Thursday to a 250-strong crowd at Moutere Hills Community Centre, Stuff has reported.

He spoke on several issues, saying New Zealand had become a “lawless” country, that it was Act’s policy to put more people in prison, and he touched on co-governance.

“Every country that has ever tried to do what this Government has tried to do [regarding co-governance] has either ended in disaster, or successfully campaigned to reintroduce liberal democracy,” Seymour said.

“I daresay if Nelson Mandela was alive today he would be campaigning for Act.”

But Kweku Mandela, Nelson Mandela’s grandson, rejected this in a post on X (formerly Twitter)

“My grandfather definitely loved the people of New Zealand and I can say categorically he would not campaign for this today or any other day in the past.”

In response, Seymour said: “Far be it from me to question any of the great man’s grandchildren, but Nelson Mandela did say ‘all people are born equal, with each entitled in equal measure to life [and] liberty’.”

Seymour said that is a core Act value and why the party is so opposed to co-government and any Government policy that treats people based on race.

The remark Seymour refers to was made during Mandela’s Nobel Peace Prize Acceptance Address in 1993.

“The value of our shared reward will and must be measured by the joyful peace which will triumph, because the common humanity that bonds both black and white into one human race, will have said to each one of us that we shall all live like the children of paradise,” Mandela said.

“Thus shall we live, because we will have created a society which recognises that all people are born equal, with each entitled in equal measure to life, liberty, prosperity, human rights and good governance.”

Mandela was awarded the prize for his work for the peaceful termination of the apartheid regime, and for laying the foundations for a new democratic South Africa.