Obituary: Stanley Uys - Veteran journalist who tracked the rise and fall of the Nats

Stanley Uys, who has died in London at the age of 91, was the parliamentary correspondent, political editor and assistant editor of the Sunday Times for 28 years.

1922-2014

During this time, he was probably the most reliable source of information about what was happening in the bowels of the National Party government.

His network of contacts was so extraordinary that Sunday Times editor Joel Mervis likened him to a spider sitting in the middle of his web waiting for news to come his way.

Uys exposed in fascinating detail the tensions, debates and doubts in the ruling party as it constructed the apartheid edifice. By breaching the carefully guarded secrecy of the Nat parliamentary caucus, he was able to show the cracks when they were still invisible to the outside world, including the Nat party faithful themselves.

Prime Minister Hendrik Verwoerd was particularly incensed when Uys gave an account of a furious disagreement between him and Nat MP Japie Basson over a government bill to abolish black representation in parliament.

He and his ministers loathed and reviled Uys more than any other journalist in the country, with the possible exception of his close friend, Anthony Delius, who wrote for the Cape Times.

Cabinet minister Ben Schoeman called Uys "probably the most unscrupulous liar in South Africa".

But they could not plug the leaks.

Reading his MPs the riot act, the Nat chief whip raged that the party caucus might as well be declared a public meeting. His remarks, made in caucus, were promptly reported verbatim by Uys in the Sunday Times.

Nats in the house competed with themselves to attack Uys as he sat impassively in the press gallery. They were so paranoid about being seen with him in public, in case they were suspected of being his source, that they avoided him like the plague.

A new Nat MP sat next to him in the lobby of parliament and began to chat. When he realised who he was talking to he gave Uys a look of horror, cried in Afrikaans "Oh my God!" and ran away.

In the 1960s, the government appointed a press commission to tether the English-language press.

Uys and Delius were singled out in the report. He was one of three journalists in parliament in 1966 to witness the fatal stabbing of Verwoerd by a messenger, Dmitri Tsafendas. He heard from a source that one of Verwoerd's ministers held a party at his house that night. For possibly the only time in his career he decided this might be one confidence too far and chose not to write about it.

In the 1970s, Uys and Mervis decided it was time the Sunday Times ended its tradition of unquestioning support for the United Party, the official opposition. The change was signalled by a devastating piece Uys wrote in which he said the party and its leader, Sir De Villiers Graaff, were being controlled by a "verkrampte Mafia" whose power must be broken.

This was the beginning of the end for the once mighty UP. It began to disintegrate, prompting a healthy realignment of white opposition politics that led ultimately to the formation of the Democratic Alliance.

Mervis described Uys in his heyday as "dapper, articulate, gregarious; the affable bon viveur, easily winning people over by his intellect, style and charm".

He combined all this with a genuine modesty, which was all the more remarkable given that he was the most famous and highly respected South African journalist for those around the world who took a serious interest in what was happening in the country both during and after apartheid.

In addition to his work for the Sunday Times, Uys wrote for The Observer, The Guardian, New Statesman and a variety of other leading foreign publications as far afield as India and Australia, and provided regular commentaries for the BBC.

He interviewed Nelson Mandela in 1961 when he was on the run from the police and hiding in a small flat in Johannesburg, and again after his release. Mandela remembered, half jokingly, that Uys had not been very impressed with him. This would have been entirely in character, because no matter how much he detested apartheid, Uys never fawned over the ANC or its leaders.

Uys was born in Coalbrook in the Free State on April 27 1922. His parents were Afrikaans and staunch members of the Dutch Reformed Church. His mother died young and he was brought up by an English-speaking grandmother. He went to Athlone High School in Johannesburg.

Uys continued producing analyses, mostly online, of South African politics until the day he died.

He is survived by his second wife, Sarchen, and two children. His first wife, Edna, died in 1993.