Chief Kaiser Matanzima is elected Chief Minister

Born in the Eastern Cape, Chief Daliwonga Kaiser Matanzima was made paramount chief of the emigrant Thembu clan. He was a strong proponent of the Apartheid regime’s Bantu Authorities Act (1951).For his support of the Apartheid government, Matanzima became a subject of more than half a dozen assassination attempts by POQO operatives. After the South African Parliament had passed the Transkei Constitution Act which replaced the existing territorial authority with a self-governing legislative assembly (though with limited law-making powers), Chief Kaiser Matanzima was elected by the Transkei Legislative Assembly during its first session as Chief Minister. The assembly was made up of forty-five elected members and sixty-four ex-officio chiefs who in terms of the Bantu Authorities Act of 1951 were employees of the South African government. Matanzima was elected mostly on the support of these non-elected chiefs. He later appointed his cabinet. In 1986, he was forced to retire by the South African government. He died in 2003.