Winnie Madikizela-Mandela may finally have brought her long and controversial political career to an ignominiously end by publicly attacking Nelson Mandela, her former husband and the founding president of South Africa's post-apartheid democracy.
Her attack is contained in an article published in the London Evening Standard and written by Nadira Naipaul, the wife of the distinguished novelist V S Naipaul, after interviewing Madikizela-Mandela in her Soweto home.
During the article Madikizela-Mandela, whose marriage to Nelson Mandela, ended in divorce in 1996, refers scathing to Mandela "letting down" the majority black population by agreeing to a deal during the settlement negotiations that did little or nothing to improve their position economically. In a particularly hurtful statement she describes "the name Mandela" as an albatross around the neck of her family.
But it would be unwise to assume that Madikizela-Mandela has inflicted irreparable damage on herself by her vituperative and unfair verbal assault on her former husband who, at the age of 91, is widely seen as South Africa's premier elder statesman.
Madikizela-Mandela may, of course, seek to escape responsibility for her contemptuous remarks about her Mandela by charging that Naipaul has either misquoted her or quoted her out of context.
Judging from the publication in The Star of the full text of the London Evening Standard article, Naidira probably tape-recorded her conversation with Madikizela-Mandela. In which case that manoeuvre to evade responsibility will be futile. Even so, Madikizela-Mandela may still emerged relatively unscathed, judging by her ability to recover from situations that would have left most people psychologically shattered and physically exhausted, or, to use boxing terminology, down and out for the count.