Nelson Mandela, a global icon for his long struggle against apartheid, marked his 90th birthday today with an appeal to the wealthy of the country he led to democracy to remember the less fortunate.

Speaking at his birthplace in the rural Eastern Cape, where as a young boy he once herded cattle, the world’s best-loved statesman also reflected on the past, saying how he wished he had been able to spend more time with his family during the struggle against white minority rule, for which he was jailed for 27 years.

“There are many people in South Africa who are rich and who can share those riches with those not so fortunate who have not been able to conquer poverty,” Mr Mandela said.

Mr Mandela, seated alongside his wife Graca Machel, said he was fortunate to have reached 90, but regretted the huge levels of poverty which still grip much of rural South Africa. “If you are poor, you are not likely to live long,” he said.

Mr Mandela promised a “better life for all” when he became the country’s first black president in 1994. He stood down in 1999 and in recent years has cut his public appearances to the bare minimum.

He opted to spend the day itself surrounded by the family he saw so little of during his long incarceration after he was convicted of treason in 1964 and sentenced to life, much spent on the windswept Robben Island, off the coast of Cape Town.

Meanwhile, tributes to “Madiba” – his clan name by which he is known in South Africa – poured in, demonstrating not just his popularity but his ability to transcend the country’s still-bitter racial and political divides.

Former President FW de Klerk, the country’s last National Party leader, called him one of the “greatest figures of the 20th century”. Putting aside several political disputes between the two, he called that Mr Mandela a “born leader”.

“After his inauguration, Nelson Mandela used his personal charm to promote reconciliation and to mould our widely diverse communities into an emerging multicultural nation… This I believe will be his greatest legacy,” he said.

It is a legacy many feel is threatened by the current generation of politicians who have not been able to fill his shoes.

The event has sparked much soul-searching, with many commentators drawing unfavourable comparisons between Mr Mandela and his successor Thabo Mbeki, whose policy over Zimbabwe has drawn much international criticism, and current ANC President Jacob Zuma who is dogged by graft allegations.

Today, however, the mood as festive. School children read poems his honours, choirs sang his praises and the great and the good sent birthday greetings gushing with praise.

Times Recommends

• British ‘tortured and jailed Obama’s grandfather’
• BA in merger talks with Qantas
• Mumbai police were ill equipped for attacks