Mandela video causes offence

South African President Jacob Zuma said he found Nelson Mandela “in good shape and in good spirits” yesterday, but a video of his encounter with the ailing anti-apartheid icon belies those cheery words, showing him with a vacant look on his face.

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 hospitalised for a recurring lung infection.

“We saw him, he’s looking very good, he’s in good shape,” Zuma told the South African Broadcasting Corp on the doorstep of Mandela’s Johannesburg home. “We had some conversation with him, shook hands, he smiled, as you can see him.”

But the SABC video shows Mandela in an armchair, his head propped up by a pillow, his legs on a footrest and covered by a blanket, 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 ANC, some Mandela family members and the former president’s medical team while Mandela stares straight ahead.

Social networks buzzed with criticism after the SABC video was aired. “Everyone around him was all smiles but him. It was so hard and painful to see,” said a post on Instagram.