WI: Nelson Mandela Dies (either in prison or before being elected)

WIth the whole of South Africa (and presumably a fair portion of the world) celebrating the late Nelson Mandela's 100th birthday today, I thought I'd use him in a WI.

There were several strange deaths under the Apartheid regime in prison, which were often described as being from natural causes (although many, if not all, knew different) rather than police brutality and the like. But say Mandela dies of old age on Robben Island or he gets knocked off in a similar way to Chris Hani after being released? Would they make as much of him today? Or would he just be a mere footnote?

The reason I ask this, is because I feel that it's fine remembering the man today and all that he stood for, but it's become so commercialized and blown out of proportion, that I wonder if (had he still been alive) this is really what he would've wanted.

A poem about the odd deaths in the South African jails under the apartheid regime:
In Detention
He fell from the ninth floor
He hanged himself
He slipped on a piece of soap while washing
He hanged himself
He slipped on a piece of soap while washing
He fell from the ninth floor
He hanged himself while washing
He slipped from the ninth floor
He hung from the ninth floor
He slipped on the ninth floor while washing
He fell from a piece of soap while slipping
He hung from the ninth floor
He washed from the ninth floor while slipping
He hung from a piece of soap while washing.
 
If Mandela dies apartheid in South Africa is probably gonna blow up catastrophically

Probably it would. Especially if Hani (or the PAC) gets elected instead of the ANC. But let's assume that Hani still gets murdered as OTL (the conspiracy says it was the ANC that actually put the hit out on Hani IIRC - I'm shockingly not well clued up on my own country's politics/history beyond what we get taught in school. And that was never part of the curriculum), what happens then? Who gets leadership of the ANC? De Klerk has already "sold the National Party down the river" as one of my teachers at school said. So Apartheid is still doomed. The question is just what happens from thereon in.
 
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