The accidental ambassador: From parliament to Patagonia

Leon, Tony

Picador Africa

In his riveting new book, Future Tense, Tony Leon captures and analyses recent South African history, with a focus on the squandered and corrupted years of the past decade. With unique access and penetrating insight, Leon presents a portrait of today's South Africa and prospects for its future, based on his political involvement over thirty years with the key power players: Cyril Ramaphosa, Jacob Zuma, Thabo Mbeki, Nelson Mandela and FW de Klerk. His close-up and personal view of these presidents and their history-making, and many encounters in the wider world, adds vivid colour of a country and planet in upheaval.Written during the first coronavirus lockdown, Future Tense examines the surge of the disease and the response, both of which have crashed the economy and its future prospects.As the founding leader of the Democratic Alliance, Leon also provides an insider view for the first time of the power struggles within that party, which saw the exit of its first black leader in 2019.There is every reason to fear for the future of South Africa but, as Leon argues, 'the hope for a better country remains an improbable, but not an impossible, dream'.

FUTURE TENSE - Reflections on My Troubled Land South Africa

Biographies & Memoirs

Leaders & Notable People

Jonathan Ball Publishers

About the Author\nTony Leon is the author of five books and is the longest serving leader of the official opposition in the Parliament of South Africa since the advent of democracy. He served afterward as South African Ambassador to Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay. A qualified attorney and Constitutional Law lecturer, Leon served for twenty years as Member of Parliament and played a leading role in the constitutional negotiations which birthed modern South Africa. He is chairman of Resolve Communications and lives in Cape Town.\n‘Anyone who wants to understand South Africa today - a country so beautiful, yet so broken - simply has to read this book.’ - Niall Ferguson 
Tony Leon, with unique access and penetrating insight, presents a portrait of today’s South Africa and prospective future, based on his vast political involvement with key power players. His intimate view of these presidents and their history-making, and his many worldly encounters, reflects on a country and planet in upheaval. 
Leon also provides an insider view for the first time of the power struggles within the official opposition party, which saw the exit of its first Black leader in 2019. 
Written during the coronavirus lockdown, Future Tense also examines the surge of both the disease and the response, which has crashed the economy and its future prospects, as well as the rise of a dangerous Julius Malema-led populism, and how this echoes global discontent elsewhere. 
'Tony Leon is not only an experienced politician but also a talented writer, and this book is the highly readable result of that combination.' - Lord William Hague, former British Foreign Secretary and Conservative Party leader

Future Tense: Reflections on my Troubled Land South Africa

Community & Culture

Icon Books

Hope & Fear Reflections of a Democrat

Politics & Social Sciences

Politics & Government

Jonathan Ball

"Tony Leon has written a book of unique insight into an unexplored aspect of the presidency and leadership of Nelson Mandela. Opposite Mandela relates the untold stories of how South Africa's first democratic president related to his political opponents. Leon served as leader of the Democratic Party during Mandela's presidency. Although they clashed, sometimes fiercely, on great issues of the day, Leon enjoyed an unusually warm relationship with Mandela and had direct access to the president's office. In this first-hand account, he relates some of the more consequential moments of those momentous times in South Africa's history-in-the-making through the lens of the opposition. Although this is a personal account, it also explores some of the major themes, from reconciliation to corruption, which not only marked that period but also laid the basis for the current challenges which confront South Africa today, nearly two decades after Mandela assumed the country's highest office, the very moment when Leon's political leadership began. Insightful, and simultaneously serious and amusing, it lifts the veil on many unknown or unexplained benchmarks from that era: the personal animosity between Mandela and FW De Klerk, the decision of the Democratic Party to reject Mandela's offer of a seat in his cabinet and whether the extraordinary outreach of Mandela to the minorities was the shrewd calculation of a latter-day Machiavelli or the genuine impulses of a secular political saint. This highly readable and first-hand account considers in a balanced manner both the golden moments and the blind spots of one of the most consequential presidencies and leaders of the modern democratic age. "

Opposite Mandela

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Books by Leon, Tony