Johannesburg – ANC secretary-general Gwede Mantashe has conveyed the ruling party’s condolences to the family of ex-intelligence minister Ronnie Kasrils whose wife, Eleanor, died at the weekend.

“She was a long-standing cadre ... she had been in all organs of the ANC since the 60s,” he said. It was reported that she died aged 73 on Sunday after suffering a stroke.

Kasrils said she collapsed at the Constantiaberg Medi-Clinic in Cape Town

The couple would have celebrated their 45th wedding anniversary next month – the “most wonderful, happy marriage”, Kasrils said, adding she had done “some fantastic things” in her political work.

Former president Thabo Mbeki said: “Comrade Eleanor’s passing is not only tragic for Comrade Ronnie and his family. It is a tragedy for all of us who fought for freedom side by side with her. Sadly, yet another combatant in the noble army of freedom fighters has fallen.”

Eleanor Kasrils was born in 1936 and joined the Congress of Democrats in 1960. She participated in Umkhonto we Sizwe activities in Durban and was arrested in 1963. She went into exile with her husband the same year after escaping from custody. She worked for the ANC in Tanzania and Britain and worked for ANC president Oliver Tambo from 1990 until his death in 1993, when she returned home.

She is survived by her husband, daughter Bridgette and sons Andrew and Christopher. – Sapa