Death of Pik Botha: Condolences from across the political spectrum

Botha passed away at a Pretoria hospital on Thursday night.

Condolences are pouring in from leaders across the South African political spectrum. 

President Cyril Ramaphosa expressed his sympathy, saying his thoughts are with the family, friends and former colleagues of Botha.

President Ramaphosa said Botha would be remembered for his support for South Africa's transition to democracy and for his service in the first democratic administration.

The ruling ANC says they will remember Botha as a "verligte".

Spokesperson Pule Mabe says the late apartheid era Foreign Affairs Minister was one of the few from the erstwhile Nationalist Party who recognized apartheid as a crime against humanity. 

UDM President Bantu Holomisa has conveyed his sympathy to the family.

"We say Pik has played his role in the Apartheid-era where he was pressurising the old administration to change for the betterment of all South Africans."

Botha shifted alliance from the National Party to the ANC in 2000.

He's counterparts considered Botha as a liberal in comparison to his Afrikaner community.

"I was fortunate to have worked with him during the time I was in charge of Transkei. We say rest in peace Pik Botha - you have played your role," says Holomisa.

In 1994, Pik Botha was one of the world's longest-serving foreign ministers.

With the dawn of democracy in South Africa, he  also took up a seat in the Government of National Unity, serving as the minister of mineral and energy affairs for two years.

He retired from active politics in 1996. 

Former president FW de Klerk urges South Africa to remember Botha as a prominent and consistent advocate of reform.

In his statement, De Klerk also pays homage to the role Botha played in the release of Nelson Mandela from prison. 

"He supported President PW Botha's reform measures and subsequently was one of the strongest proponents of the constitutional transformation process that we initiated on 2 February 1990. He played a constructive role in the subsequent negotiations and after the 1994 election."

"Perhaps his most important contribution, was the manner in which he and his colleagues in the Department of Foreign Affairs held the line against growing international pressure until the collapse of international communism in 1989 opened the way to the negotiations that led to the establishment of our nonracial constitutional democracy."

De Klerk also refers to Botha's "unique and colourful personality", adding in the statement that was what made him enter politics to begin with.

"His colourful style and forthright rhetoric won him widespread popularity among the white electorate and encouraged him, in 1978 and 1989, to stand as a candidate for the leadership of the National Party."