CONTROVERSY TRAILS MANDELA’S CHILDREN KIM-STYLED REALITY SHOW

 Swati Dlamini and Zaziwe Dlamini-Manaway.Mandela

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  Amid growing controversy over attempts by Nelson Mandela's children to capitalize off his legacy, two granddaughters launch Kardashian-style reality show.

  In the first few minutes of South Africa’s newest reality TV show, Nelson Mandela’s granddaughters squabble about a boyfriend, berate a shop assistant and visit their grandfather’s jail cell on Robben Island.

“It’s all part of being a Mandela,” one of the young women says.

South Africans appear to disagree, widely ridiculing the Kardashian-style show when it premiered Wednesday night, depicting the luxurious lives of Mandela granddaughters Swati Dlamini and Zaziwe Dlamini-Manaway.

Nelson Mandela

But it shows the growing controversy over attempts to make money off the now-frail Mandela’s famous name. While the 94-year-old anti-apartheid hero recovers at home following his latest hospitalization for pneumonia, his progeny are stepping up the battle for control over the Mandela legacy — and the limelight.

Mandela retired from public life in 1999 and was last seen in public in 2010. He has married three times, and has three surviving children, 17 grandchildren, and 12 surviving great-grandchildren.

Apart from the reality TV show, the two granddaughters run a clothing line called LWTF — or Long Walk to Freedom, after the title of their grandfather’s autobiography.

The clothing line is a selection of otherwise uninspiring T-shirts bearing Mandela’s image and signature, along with the “Long Walk to Freedom” catchphrase.

“The brand stands for or represents making people strive to be better,” a mission statement says. “The Mandela Brand is a credible brand that people trust across the globe and we feel that all people from all walks of life want to be associated with the Mandela brand.”

Tukwini Mandela and her mother, Makaziwe, recently launched the House of Mandela Wines at a trade fair in Florida — and have themselves drawn criticism from other members of the Mandela family, who feel it is inappropriate to associate Nelson Mandela with alcohol.

An editorial in South Africa’s Sunday Times newspaper titled, “Greedy hands in the Mandela cookie jar,” criticizes his children and grandchildren that “have begun circling Mandela’s purported wealth, each avariciously determined to extract financial gain from a man who not only has meant so much to our country, but is a positive global symbol.”

“The open bickering in the Mandela family is shameful, given the frailty of the former president,” the editorial said.It is downright embarrassing to witness how a man to whom this country owes an untold debt and who is known as the father of our nation is being torn apart by those closest to him.”