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By DEVON MAYLIE And PATRICK MCGROARTY
PRETORIA—Nelson Mandela remained in critical condition on Monday, as attention shifted to the Pretoria hospital where the 94-year-old former president has convalesced for more than two weeks.
Mr. Mandela’s declining health also has prompted many South Africans to weigh his legacy against his African National Congress party’s track record for delivering on his vision for a nonracial society that would pull disenfranchised blacks into the political and economic mainstream.
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The numbers of well-wishers and journalists from around the world swelled again outside the gates of the private Mediclinic Heart Hospital in South Africa’s capital. Flowers and messages of support piled up against a brick wall for Mr. Mandela, a sign of enduring public affection for the ailing statesmen. Family and government officials have shuttled in and out to see him since Mr. Mandela was admitted on June 8.
Until Sunday, the government had been terming his condition “serious but stable.” Late Sunday night, the South African presidency said his health had worsened over 24 hours and his condition had turned “critical.” Speaking to reporters Monday, President Jacob Zuma wouldn’t elaborate on Mr. Mandela’s condition or the care he was receiving.
“All of us as a country should accept that Madiba is old…as he ages, his health will trouble him,” Mr. Zuma said, referring to Mr. Mandela by his clan name, as he’s popularly known here. “When a person is critical, they are critical,” he said.
The hospital’s location and cardiac specialty have raised questions about why Mr. Mandela’s doctors brought him there to treat what officials initially described as a recurrence of a lung infection, one of many he has battled since contracting tuberculosis during his 27 years in prison for opposing South Africa’s former white-minority regime.
The clinic is 30 miles north of Mr. Mandela’s home in the Johannesburg suburbs, much farther away than a nearby Johannesburg hospital where he received treatment in the past.
The trip wasn’t without complications. Mr. Zuma’s office acknowledged over the weekend that Mr. Mandela’s ambulance broke down en route to Pretoria on June 8, forcing doctors to move him to a second vehicle to finish the 40-minute drive. But Mr. Zuma’s spokesman, Mac Maharaj, has refuted reports that Mr. Mandela went into cardiac arrest on his way to the hospital. He also denied Mr. Mandela was stranded on the road for 40 minutes, but didn’t elaborate, citing doctor-patient confidentiality.
Mr. Maharaj said Monday that Mr. Mandela’s doctors are in charge of making all decisions related to his health, including the hospitals at which he receives treatment and how much information to disclose. Mr. Mandela has been hospitalized four times since December.
Malcom Matsiko, a 35-year-old accountant who walked past the Pretoria hospital on his way to work Monday, said he hoped the choice of hospitals could increase prospects for Mr. Mandela’s recovery. “I pray they brought him because they can make him better here,” said Mr. Matsiko, wearing a tattered black cap bearing the logo of the ANC party that Mr. Mandela led to power in 1994. “I pray that he will exit and be with us for some time more.”
Mr. Mandela’s hospitalization has led many South Africans to reflect upon the promise he represented when he became the country’s first black president and about whether the ANC and the government have been able to deliver on the future he envisioned.
South Africa’s official unemployment rate is over a quarter of the workforce, and economic growth is expected to linger near 2% this year, weighed down by labor unrest at mines and in other sectors.
“Before, there were black people, and they were poor. Now there are rich black people and poor black people, and the gap in between is not gone,” said Yandi Sigenu, a 24-year-old business analyst in Johannesburg. “The government worries about only itself and its own kind.”
Mr. Zuma acknowledged South Africa’s economic strains on Monday, but he blamed a prolonged global downturn for the domestic troubles. He also took issue with critics who have accused his government of a lackluster performance that hasn’t improved upon apartheid-era education, basic services and levels of employment.
Mr. Zuma said his ANC-led government has successfully brought electricity and clean water to nearly all South Africans and vowed to work with businesses to create jobs and “do a lot more to improve the quality of the poor and working class.”
Mr. Zuma added: “What we can say in terms of implementation, we have not done what we would have wanted to do.”
Write to Devon Maylie at devon.maylie@dowjones.com and Patrick McGroarty at patrick.mcgroarty@dowjones.com
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