Cornelius Petrus Mulder (5 June 1925 – 12 January 1988) was a South African politician and cabinet minister.

Early life

Mulder was born on 5 June 1925. He was the son of a school principal and grew up with nine siblings. He studied for his bachelor of arts degree and received a diploma in education in 1945. He started his career as a teacher of

Afrikaans Afrikaans is a West Germanic languages, West Germanic language spoken in South Africa, Namibia and to a lesser extent Botswana, Zambia, Zimbabwe and also Argentina where there is a group in Sarmiento, Chubut, Sarmiento that speaks the Pat ...

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany, the country of the Germans and German things **Germania (Roman era) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizenship in Germany, see also Ge ...

and history in

Randfontein Randfontein is a gold mining town in the West Rand, Gauteng, South Africa, west of Johannesburg. With the Witwatersrand gold rush in full swing, mining financier Sir Joseph Robinson, 1st Baronet, JB Robinson bought the farm Randfontein and, in ...

and then attended the

University of the Witwatersrand The University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg (), commonly known as Wits University or Wits, is a multi-campus Public university, public research university situated in the northern areas of central Johannesburg, South Africa. The universit ...

, where he received his PhD. His doctorate thesis was titled ''Die invloed van die Bybel op die ontstaan van die Afrikaanse volksaard'' (The Influence of the Bible in the forming of the Afrikaans National Character).

Political career

Mayor of Randfontein

Mulder became involved in local politics in Randfontein, becoming a member of the city council in 1951. He was elected as the deputy mayor and chair of the council's finance committee and later was elected as the mayor in 1953, when he was 28 years old. In 1955, he was elected president of the Transvaal Municipal Association. He was elected mayor for a second term in 1957 and he was a member of the United Municipal Executive of South Africa for four years. He became increasingly involved with the National Party, serving as chair of its divisional committee.

Member of Parliament

Mulder was elected to the legislature in the 1958 general election, representing the district of Randfontein for the National Party. He was named as the Minister of Information in 1968 by the Prime Minister

John Vorster Balthazar Johannes "B. J." Vorster (; 13 December 1915 – 10 September 1983), better known as John Vorster, was a South African politician who served as the prime minister of South Africa from 1966 to 1978 and the fourth state president of So ...

. He was later appointed as the Minister of Bantu Administration (later renamed as the Minister of Plural Relations) in 1978, while maintaining his previous ministerial appointment. Following the death of the Finance Minister

Nico Diederichs Nicolaas Johannes "Nico" Diederichs, (17 November 1903 – 21 August 1978) served as the third state president of South Africa from 1975 to 1978. Education and career After completing school, he attended Grey University College between 1921 ...

, it was generally believed that Mulder would succeed Vorster as Prime Minister.

Muldergate Scandal

In 1977, he was implicated as the namesake of the

Muldergate scandal The Muldergate scandal, also known as the Information Scandal or Infogate, was a South African political scandal involving a secret propaganda campaign conducted by the apartheid Department of Information. It centred on revelations about the depa ...

. In September 1972, Mulder appointed Eschel Rhoodie as the Secretary of Information and the department began to push propaganda, ultimately spending millions to influence media outlets in South Africa and abroad to support the government's

Apartheid Apartheid ( , especially South African English: , ; , ) was a system of institutionalised racial segregation that existed in South Africa and South West Africa (now Namibia) from 1948 to the early 1990s. It was characterised by an ...

policies. They assisted John McGoff, an American newspaper publisher who supported the administration, in his efforts to purchase ''

The Washington Star ''The Washington Star'', previously known as the ''Washington Star-News'' and the ''Washington'' ''Evening Star'', was a daily afternoon newspaper published in Washington, D.C., between 1852 and 1981. The Sunday edition was known as the ''Sunday ...

'' and ''

The Sacramento Union ''The Sacramento Union'' was a daily newspaper founded in 1851 in Sacramento, California. It was the oldest daily newspaper west of the Mississippi River before it closed its doors after 143 years in January 1994, no longer able to compete with ' ...

''. His department also financed the South African newspaper '' The Citizen'' to bolster support for Vorster's regime among English-speaking South Africans in an attempt to counter the liberal '' The Rand Daily Mail''. Ultimately in 1977, the Auditor-General, Gerald Barrie, leaked the evidence that state funds had been misused. Though the scandal eventually brought about Vorster's downfall and complete retirement from politics, Mulder lost the ballot to succeed him in September 1978. He barely lost in the first round to

Pieter Willem Botha Pieter Willem Botha, ( , ; 12 January 1916 – 31 October 2006) was a South African politician who served as the last Prime Minister of South Africa from 1978 to 1984 and as the first executive State President of South Africa from 1984 until ...

in a narrow 72-78 vote. In the second round, he lost with a comfortable 98 votes to 74, in Botha's favour. This was because 20 supporters of foreign minister

Pik Botha Roelof Frederik "Pik" Botha, (27 April 1932 – 12 October 2018) was a South African politician who served as the country's foreign minister in the last years of the apartheid era, the longest-serving in South African history. Known as a lib ...

(the third candidate in the race) threw their support to P.W. Botha, and only two to Mulder. Mulder was subsequently retained in Botha's reshuffling of the government. However, the Information Scandal stories started appearing in the media, which led to his resignation as Minister on 8 November 1978. From documents that reached ''The Spectator'', in a separate scandal, Mulder had a financial interest in certain South African companies which run a group of private enterprise mental homes for the blacks.

Founding of the National Conservative Party

Following his expulsion from the National Party in the wake of the Information Scandal, Mulder and his followers formed the National Conservative Party. However, all of the party's nine candidates were defeated at the 1981 general election. Mulder himself lost by 922 votes in the constituency of Randfontein, where he had won in the 1977 general election with a majority of 7,763. After the founding of the Conservative Party, in which he participated, Mulder was elected to the

House of Assembly House of Assembly is a name given to the legislature or lower house of a bicameral parliament. In some countries this may be at a subnational level. Historically, in British Crown colonies as the colony gained more internal responsible g ...

at the 1987 general election, at the age of 62.

Death and legacy

By then suffering from terminal

cancer Cancer is a group of diseases involving Cell growth#Disorders, abnormal cell growth with the potential to Invasion (cancer), invade or Metastasis, spread to other parts of the body. These contrast with benign tumors, which do not spread. Po ...

, he died on 12 January 1988 before he was able to take his seat. His two sons,

Pieter Pieter is a male given name, the Dutch language, Dutch form of Peter (name), Peter. The name has been one of the most common names in the Netherlands for centuries, but since the mid-twentieth century its popularity has dropped steadily, from a ...

and Corné, became Conservative Party MPs in 1988. After the 2009 general election, both sons served in the

National Assembly of South Africa The National Assembly is the directly elected house of the Parliament of South Africa, located in Cape Town, Western Cape. It consists of four hundred members who are elected every five years using a party-list proportional representation sy ...

as Members of Parliament for the

Freedom Front Plus The Freedom Front Plus (FF Plus or FF+; , ''VF Plus'') is a right-wing political party in South Africa that was formed (as the Freedom Front) in 1994. It is led by Corné Mulder. Since 2024, it is a part of the current South African Third Cabin ...

. Pieter later resigned as M.P. and party leader in November 2016. Corné still serve in Parliament as a member of

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mulder, Connie 1925 births 1988 deaths People from Bela-Bela Local Municipality Afrikaner people National Party (South Africa) politicians Conservative Party (South Africa) politicians Ministers of home affairs of South Africa Members of the House of Assembly (South Africa) Deaths from cancer in South Africa