Talk:List of heads of state of South Africa

President / State President
The table should distinguish between ceremonial State President (1961-1984), executive State President (1984-1994) and President (1994-present). Zaian (talk) 21:27, 10 April 2013 (UTC)


 * I was planning to work on that, and also to add a list of Governors-General for the Union. - htonl (talk) 21:44, 10 April 2013 (UTC)r

Singular or plural headers?
It doesn't make sense that some headers are plural ("Monarchs", "Governors-General") while others are singular ("President of South Africa", etc.) We must have it one way or the other; the plural makes more sense to me since in each case more than one person has occupied the office. - htonl (talk) 17:34, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

South Africa is a nation state established in 1910
Some people have been adding heads of state of predecessor states to South Africa, in this case the Orange Free State. This addition of this content is well-meaning, but the two political entities i.e. South Africa and the Orange Free State are not the same.

The Boer Republic heads of state are already listed in their own articles. If we added Boer leaders to this article we would have to add the various Southern African monarchies too, for example the Zulu Kingdom. Then we would get in a dispute as to what counts as South Africa and what counts as a head of state.

This whole issue can be avoided by sticking only to the state of South Africa which was founded in 1910. Before 1910 there was no single political entity encompassing the entirety of what is now South Africa, so addition of heads of states from say Boer Republic or the Zulu kingdom would not fit within the scope of this article.Francoisdjvr (talk) 13:45, 16 December 2019 (UTC)


 * I agree 100%. This article is about the heads of state of the country established in 1910. Before 1910 there were multiple British colonies, Boer republics, indigenous kingdoms and other polities, etc. etc. which are out of scope for this article. - htonl (talk) 16:40, 16 December 2019 (UTC)

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Ramaphosa error
it says Ramaphosa's 2018 term was 1 day but that's just the time he spent as interim. his 2018 term started on 15 February 2018 and his 2019 term started on 22 May, 2019 so he is technically on his third term. The President of South Africa page has a section called Presidents of South Africa since 1994 which shows what am trying to explain Uhrfuvf (talk) 23:10, 14 January 2023 (UTC)

Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri
I don't want to mess with the tables in case I break the formatting but Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri really shouldn't be listed here. It is truly so routine to have ministers serve as acting president: e.g. Buthelezi, Shabangu, Pandor, Mashatile. It would be totally ridiculous to try to list all of them here, but it also doesn't make sense to single Matsepe-Casaburri out as the only acting president worth listing. Jlalbion (talk) 00:07, 6 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Acting presidents are normally included in lists like this when there isn't anyone else as president. I didn't check all your examples, but the first one was about someone serving as the acting president while the president was out of the country. While Matsepe-Casaburri was acting president following the resignation of the president. Emk9 (talk) 20:47, 6 July 2024 (UTC)