Cape Town - Only the third US president to visit South Africa is due to visit Cape Town - more than 15 years since Bill Clinton touched down in the Mother City.
The first US president to visit South Africa, Clinton arrived with his wife Hillary at Cape Town International Airport on March 26, 1998.
George W Bush visited South Africa in 2003, but did not visit Cape Town.
And now the White House has announced that President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama will be travelling to Senegal, South Africa and Tanzania from June 26 to July 3.
Although an itinerary has not been announced, trusted sources confirmed that Obama would visit Cape Town. Mayor Patricia de Lille is hoping to bestow the Freedom of the City upon the couple.
They would join other living Freemen of the City such as Nelson Mandela, Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu and University of the Western Cape Vice-Chancellor Dr Richard van der Ross.
The mayor’s spokesman, Solly Malatsi, said o0n Tuesday: “We will wait for official direction from President Jacob Zuma’s office due to the fact that as President Obama is a head of state the Presidency, in terms of state protocol, will guide us on all issues related to this matter.”
In 1998, Clinton was on a two-week tour of Africa, described at the time as “a level of interest in Africa unprecedented for a Western head of state”.
The Clintons were hosted by Mandela. Obama visited Cape Town while he was a US senator, and Michelle Obama travelled to the city in 2011 as part of a broader outreach to Africa.
On that occasion Obama met then-premier Ebrahim Rasool, who is now SA ambassador to the US.
Cape Argus