Talk:State President of South Africa

Honours
Some of the State Presidents of South Africa were awarded honours such as the Decoration for Meritorious Services. Could someone please do a bit of research & add in the appropriate postnominal letters to the biographies of the State Presidents themselves. The same story applies to the 2 Presidents of South Africa as well. - (Aidan Work 03:51, 3 January 2006 (UTC))

T.E. Donges should be added in as well
T.E. Dönges should be added in as well, as he was elected State President of South Africa, but was never inaugurated due to ill-health. - (Aidan Work 05:12, 12 January 2006 (UTC))

Fair use rationale for Image:State President RSA 1961 Flag.png
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BetacommandBot (talk) 05:06, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:State President RSA 1985 Flag.png
Image:State President RSA 1985 Flag.png is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to ensure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.

If there is other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images lacking such an explanation can be deleted one week after being tagged, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.

BetacommandBot (talk) 05:07, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Presidential numbering?
The numbering of the state president is inconsistent across the various Wikipedia articles. See Talk:Pieter_Willem_Botha for a discussion on the numbering.Greenman (talk)

Merge
This article should be merged with President of South Africa, as this really the same position, with many changes to it, of course. Charles Essie (talk) 22:11, 4 July 2013 (UTC)
 * In my opinion, Charles, these articles should stay separated. I have no doubt that your suggestion came out of good faith, but positions of Appartheid-era State President and current post-Appartheid President are too different to be merged in the same article. You admit yourself there were many changes to the position of the President of South Africa over time, and I think those changes are too big to merge pre-1994 Presidents and post-1994 Presidents in the same article. Cheers! --Sundostund (talk) 13:01, 5 July 2013 (UTC)
 * The State President position since 1984 is quite similar to the position of President. Both are heads of state and government, elected by the lower house of parliament. The articles could be merged, I'd be more concerned about the info box, and the dates and firsts used in it. Crazydude22 (talk) 05:39, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

The positions of State President & President are two distinctive positions, with the position of President replacing the position of State President in 1994, when F. W. de Klerk was succeeded by the late Nelson Mandela. The articles should NOT be merged for this very reason. - (203.211.76.33 (talk) 00:21, 9 May 2014 (UTC))

I think the articles should be merged because they are basically the same positions Sanele Dupont (talk) 21:01, 11 November 2021 (UTC)

Acting Presidents
I believe it is incorrect to list acting presidents in this list. The position is not synonymous with the president. They are people nominated by the president to stand in their place when they are unable to fulfil the role eg. through illness or when they are out of the country. Look at Johannes de Klerk. He was only acting president for 10 days. Jan Smuts was acting prime minister of the UK for longer than that. Mattpbarry (talk) 13:58, 20 January 2014 (UTC)


 * Acting Presidents should be included. As you know, there are literally countless lists of officeholders on WP (Presidents, Prime Ministers, etc), and almost all of them include acting officeholders as a part of the list. It is much better option than to just have time gaps between terms of elected officeholders which, sometimes, can be several months long. Take for example situation in South Africa in 1967-68: Swart's term expired, Dönges was elected but unable to start his term due to illness, and it took almost a year to elect Fouché to replace him. Do we really need a time gap from 1967 to 1968? I don't think so. As I said, leave Acting Presidents as a part of the list. --Sundostund (talk) 14:57, 20 January 2014 (UTC)


 * Agreed, with the note that we only include acting presidents who serve while there is no sitting president, due to death, resignation or whatever. We don't include acting presidents who served while a sitting President was still in office but ill or out of the country. - htonl (talk) 15:29, 20 January 2014 (UTC)


 * I agree with you, Htonl. We don't really need Acting Presidents who served while a sitting President was still in office but ill or out of the country. By using that criteria, we only need to remove Chris Heunis, who served during P.W. Botha's illness, and you just did it. --Sundostund (talk) 15:38, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

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Merger
I think this article should be merged with the article President of South Africa as they are the same positions. Both are head of state and government. Sanele Dupont (talk) 21:02, 11 November 2021 (UTC)
 * The articles seem clear about the differences. The State President was not head of government before 1984, and the office was abolished in 1994. Greenman (talk) 11:10, 15 November 2021 (UTC)