Stella Sigcau, Prime minister of the South African Bantustan of Transkei, is ousted from power in a bloodless military coup led by General Bantu Holomisa.

Stella Nomzamo Sigcau was a South African politician. Sigcau was also the first female Prime Minister of the bantustan of Transkei before being deposed in a military coup in 1987. After Transkei was merged into South Africa following the end of apartheid, Sigcau became a minister in the cabinets of Nelson Mandela and Thabo Mbeki until her death.

A Bantustan was a territory that the National Party administration of the Union of South Africa (1910–1961) and later the Republic of South Africa (1961–1994) set aside for black inhabitants of South Africa and South West Africa, as a part of its policy of apartheid.

The 1987 Transkei coup d'état was a bloodless military coup in Transkei, an unrecognised state and a nominally independent South African homeland for the Xhosa people, which took place on 30 December 1987. The coup was led by the then 32-year-old Major General Bantu Holomisa, the Chief of the Transkei Defence Force, against the government of Prime Minister Stella Sigcau (TNIP). Holomisa suspended the civilian constitution and refused South Africa's repeated demands for a return to civilian rule on the grounds that a civilian government would be a puppet controlled by Pretoria.

Bantubonke Harrington Holomisa is a South African politician. He is a member of parliament for and president of the United Democratic Movement. and the current Deputy Minister of Defence and Military Veterans. Holomisa was born in Mqanduli, Cape Province. He joined the Transkei Defence Force in 1976 and had become a brigadier by 1985.