Connie Mulder
| Petrus Cornelius Mulder | |
|---|---|
| Minister of Information | |
|
In office 1968–1977 |
|
| Prime Minister | John Vorster |
| Personal details | |
| Born |
5 June 1925 Warmbaths, Transvaal Province, Union of South Africa |
| Died | 12 January 1988 (aged 62) Johannesburg, Transvaal Province, South Africa |
| Citizenship | South African |
| Nationality | South African |
| Political party |
Conservative Party National Party |
| Children | Pieter Mulder, Corné Mulder |
Connie Mulder, born Petrus Cornelius Mulder (5 June 1925– 12 January 1988 in Johannesburg), was a South African politician, cabinet minister and father of Pieter Mulder, the current leader of the Freedom Front Plus.
He started his working career as a teacher of Afrikaans, German and History at the Randgate Afrikaansmediumskool and obtained his PhD from Witwatersrand University. Mulder was a married father of four. Two of his children, Pieter and Corné Mulder, followed their father into politics. Both serve as of the 2009 election in the National Assembly of South Africa as Members of Parliament for the Freedom Front Plus.
In 1951 he was appointed member of the city council of Randfontein and immediately elected deputy mayor and chairman of the finance committee of the city council. In 1953 (at age 28) he was elected mayor of Randfontein and two years later in 1955 was elected President of the Transvaal Municipal Association. In 1957 he was elected mayor again and he was a member of the United Municipal Executive of South Africa for four years.
Mulder was elected to the legislature in 1958 as a National Party member. John Vorster named him Information Minister in 1968. In 1977, he was implicated as namesake of the Muldergate Scandal, in which he was accused of having established a government slush fund for financing The Citizen, for the purpose of bolstering support for Vorster's regime among English-speaking South Africans.
In January 1978 he was appointed Minister of Plural Relations and Development.
Though the scandal eventually brought about Vorster's downfall and complete retirement from politics, Mulder only barely lost the ballot to succeed him in September 1978, losing the final round to Pieter Willem Botha in a narrow 72-78 vote. He subsequently was retained in Botha's reshuffling of the government. However the Information Scandal stories started appearing in the media and this led to his resignation as Minister on November 8, 1978.
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