South African President Jacob Zuma has insisted he found Nelson Mandela “in good shape and in good spirits” despite a video of his encounter with the ailing anti-apartheid leader showed him looking distant and frail.
It’s been more than three weeks since Mandela was released after a 10-day stay in the hospital, the third time in five months that he was hospitalized for a recurring lung infection.
“We saw him, he’s looking very good, he’s in good shape,” Mr Zuma told the South African Broadcasting Corp. on the doorstep of Mr Mandela’s Johannesburg home. “We had some conversation with him, shook hands, he smiled, as you can see him, that he’s really up and about and stabilized. We’re really very happy. We think that he’s fine.”
But the SABC video shows Mr Mandela in an armchair, his head propped up by a pillow, his legs on a footrest and covered by a blanket, looking grey-skinned and unsmiling with his cheeks showing what appear to be marks from a recently removed oxygen mask.
Zuma jokes and laughs with two officials of the governing African National Congress, some Mandela family members and the former president’s medical team while Mandela stares straight ahead, unresponsive. Zuma tries to hold Mandela’s hand but, given his lack of response, ends up covering it with his own.
“Smile, smile,” Mr Mandela is urged as one of his grandsons grabs a cell phone to take a picture.
