Africa-Press – South-Africa. Former Free State premier Beatrice Marshoff has died.
Premier Mxolisi Dukwana announced the death of Marshoff in a statement on Saturday.
Marshoff, 66, served as premier between April 2004 until May 2009.
In the statement, Dukwana hailed Marshoff, whom he said was one of four female premiers to have served the province since 1994.
“She served the people of the Free State province with great honour and distinction, particularly at a time when female leaders in such positions were a great rarity,” said Dukwana in the statement.
Former premier of the Free State, Sisi Ntombela, also paid tribute to Marshoff in a Facebook post. In the post, Ntombela said Marshoff’s “leadership inspired hope” and that she was “grateful to have served with a woman of her stature.”
“Some of us were greatly inspired by this giant who led with absolute humility. Through her leadership, Marshoff demonstrated that women were indeed capable of leading.
“Her death cuts deep and couldn’t have come at a worse time when our province needs all of us to rally behind our leadership in shaping the future of our beloved Free State province,” said Ntombela.
The ANC Mangaung region also paid tribute to Marshoff, whom it said: “served the people of Free State with high moral and highest ethical standards expected of ANC deployees.”
The party, in a statement, said it tapped into Marshoff’s wisdom with other veterans in its quest to unite and renew the movement.
“Premier Marshoff remained a symbol of pride for the people of Free State and one of the pioneers in women leadership who proved the decision of the ANC as correct that it had capable women to lead at the highest echelons of power,” reads the statement.
In 2019, who resigned from politics after her stint as premier, spoke to News24 after she had been quoted in journalist Pieter-Louis Myburgh’s book Gangster State: Unravelling Ace Magashule’s Web of Capture.
She told News24 that she had a challenging role and felt that she was seen as an opposition member to the ANC. She alleged that she was “under tremendous attacks from my own organisation, and there was a constant call for me to be recalled.”
“I never felt helpless; I had a purpose… I sometimes felt a little intimidated, perhaps by the amount of resentment by the ANC in the province. Although I had cordial relationships with everybody, at some stage, their attitudes changed.”
After quitting politics, Marshoff went back to nursing, and before her retirement from that profession, she worked as a theatre scrub sister.
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