Mandla Zwelivelile Mandela, 36, is emerging as a powerful figure in South Africa, as he trades on the name of his grandfather, the legendary Nelson Mandela, to build a political and business career for himself. He first shot into the public limelight in 2007 when he was appointed chief of the Traditional Council in Mvezo, birthplace of the anti-apartheid icon. Community elders offered the chieftaincy to Mr Mandela, but he rejected it in favour of Mandla, whose father was Makgatho, Mr Mandela's late son by his first wife, Evelyn. Recalling in an interview with South Africa's News 24 media channel how he became aware of his blood ties to Mr Mandela, then a political prisoner, Mandla said: "I started becoming conscientised of the name in the mid-1980s when riots started in Soweto and everyone was shouting 'Viva Mandela' and I always asked my father: 'Why is our name being shouted in the street?' It was only then that he started introducing me to the identity." He suggested that Mr Mandela had chosen him as his heir. 'Serious and very respectful' "In 2002, after I had been out of school for a good seven or eight years, he [Mr Mandela] insisted that I should go back to study. He really wanted to ensure that if there was a next one in mind to take over and look after the Mandela legacy he needed that individual to have a strong foundation," said Mandla, who later graduated with a politics degree from South Africa's Rhodes University. Peter Vale, a lecturer at the university, says Mandla was "not in the top drawer academically, but he was serious and very respectful." Mandla began to play a high-profile political role during last year's bitterly-fought election campaign when he threw his weight behind the African National Congress (ANC) and its controversial leader Jacob Zuma in their campaign to stave off a challenge from a breakaway party, the Congress of the People (Cope). Amidst intense speculation that the Nelson Mandela Foundation, which is officially in charge of the former president's affairs, wanted him to stay out of the divisive campaign, Mr Mandela surprised observers by sharing public platforms with Mr Zuma and Mandla, a possible sign of the grandson's influence over the nonagenarian. "He [Mr Mandela] gave his life to the party and he decides for himself. And who is Jakes Gerwel [the chairman of the board of trustees of the Nelson Mandela Foundation] to tell me where to take my grandfather?" he told Johannesburg's Mail & Guardian newspaper. Flag-bearer The ANC rewarded Mandla by nominating him to parliament but, says Mr Vale, he "will struggle to go far politically. The big figure of the man will always be there. "This is not like the Gandhi-Nehru dynasty of India. There was sort of a tradition there that the children will follow. I don't think that will happen [in South Africa]. The ANC is too contested," Mr Vale adds. Mandla, however, seems determined to portray himself as Mr Mandela's flag-bearer. "In my veins runs the blood of the Mandelas which has been around for centuries," he once boasted. In another sign that he relishes his new status, he insisted, during a legal battle to evict a tenant from a Mandela home in Soweto, on being called Chief Zwelivelile, a Xhosa name which means "the nation has appeared", and given to him after a circumcision ceremony in 1993.