Jacob Gedleyihlekisa Zuma, President of South Africa
Jacob Zuma was born on 12 April 1942 in Inkandla, KwaZulu-Natal Province.
His father died at the end of World War II, after which his mother took up employment as a domestic worker in Durban. He spent his childhood moving between Zululand and the suburbs of Durban, and by age 15 took on odd jobs to supplement his mother’s income.
Owing to his deprived childhood, Jacob Zuma did not receive any formal schooling. Heavily influenced by a trade unionist family member, he became involved in politics at an early age and joined the African National Congress in 1959. He became an active member of Umkhonto We Sizwe in 1962, following the banning of the ANC in 1960.
While on his way out of the country in 1963, he was arrested with a group of 45 recruits near Zeerust in what was then the western Transvaal (now the Northern West Province). Convicted of conspiring to overthrow the government, he was sentenced to 10 years' imprisonment, which he served on Robben Island.
After his release, Jacob Zuma helped mobilise internal resistance and was instrumental in the re-establishment of ANC underground structures in the then Natal province, (KwaZulu-Natal) between 1973 and 1975.
He left South Africa in 1975 and for the next 12 years, based first in Swaziland and then Mozambique, dealt with thousands of young exiles who poured out of South Africa in the wake of the Soweto uprising.
He lived in several African countries working for the ANC, where he rose rapidly through the ranks to become a member of the ANC National Executive Committee in 1977. He also served as Deputy Chief Representative of the ANC in Mozambique, a post he occupied until the signing of the Nkomati Accord between the Mozambican and South African governments in 1984. After signing the Accord, he was appointed as Chief Representative of the ANC and was one of a few who remained in Mozambique to carry out the work of the organisation, crossing in and out of South Africa on a number of occasions.
Jacob Zuma was forced to leave Mozambique in January 1987 after considerable pressure on the Mozambican government by the PW Botha regime. He moved to the ANC Head Office in Lusaka, Zambia, where he was appointed Head of Underground Structures and shortly thereafter Chief of the Intelligence Department.
He served on the ANC’s political and military council when it was formed in the mid-80s. Following the unbanning of the ANC in February 1990, he was one of the first ANC leaders to return to South Africa to begin the process of negotiations, and was instrumental in organising the Groote Schuur Minute between the FW de Klerk regime and the ANC that reached important decisions about the return of exiles and the release of political prisoners.
In 1990, at the first Regional Congress of the ANC in KwaZulu-Natal (KZN), he was elected Chairperson of the Southern Natal region and took a leading role in fighting violence in the region. This resulted in a number of Peace Accords involving the ANC and the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP).
In 1991, at the first ANC National Conference held in South Africa after the unbanning of the organisation, he was elected the Deputy Secretary General of the ANC.
In January 1994, he was nominated as the ANC candidate for the Premiership of the KZN province. He is generally regarded as the person most instrumental in achieving the peace that is now enjoyed by the people of KZN and in October 1998 he was honoured with the Nelson Mandela Award for Outstanding Leadership in Washington DC, USA.
After the first national democratic elections in South Africa in 1994, Jacob Zuma was appointed as Member of the Executive Committee (MEC) of Economic Affairs and Tourism for the KZN provincial government.
He is also a patron of the KZN Reconstruction and Development Project (RDP) Bursary Fund, which is linked to the RDP section of the Department of Economic Affairs and Tourism. He established this bursary fund, using funds that each cabinet member of the KZN province was given to use on any project of their choice. Owing to his rural background and empathy for the poorest of the poor, he decided to use his allocation to help educate poor people in rural areas by establishing the bursary fund. The fund focuses mainly on primary school children in the rural areas but has, from 1999, started assisting students at tertiary institutions. There is currently in excess of 1,000 pupils being assisted at primary level and 10 at tertiary institutions.
In December 1994, Jacob Zuma was elected National Chairperson of the ANC and chairperson of the ANC in KZN. He was re-elected to the latter position in 1996.
He was elected Deputy President of the ANC at the National Conference held at Mafikeng in December 1997.
Jacob Zuma was appointed Executive Deputy President of South Africa in June 1999.
May 9, 2009 – Jacob Zuma elected and inaugurated President of South Africa.
Kgalema Motlanthe, Former President of South Africa
Kgalema Motlanthe was born on 19 July 1949 in Alexandra township, Johannesburg, to a working class family. Most of his childhood was spent in Alexandra and much of his adult life was spent in Meadowlands, Soweto.
In the 1970s, while working for the Johannesburg City Council, he was recruited into Umkhonto we Sizwe. He formed part of a unit tasked with recruiting comrades for military training.
The unit was later instructed to transform its function from recruitment to sabotage. While some members of the unit left the country, he and Stan Nkosi remained in the country to establish such a machinery. Their unit was also involved in smuggling MK cadres in and out of the country via Swaziland.
On 14 April 1976 they were arrested for furthering the aims of the ANC and were kept in detention for 11 months at John Vorster Square in central Johannesburg.
In 1977 he was found guilty of three charges under Terrorism Act and sentenced to an effective 10 years imprisonment on Robben Island.
After his release in 1987, he was tasked with strengthening the union movement.
Motlanthe worked for the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) in charge of education. Among other things, he was involved in training workers to form shopsteward committees.
In 1992 he was elected NUM General Secretary.
He was instrumental in negotiating a deal for mineworkers under which their wage increases would be pegged to productivity at a time when the gold price was low, and the industry was closing marginal mines. This deal helped to avert massive retrenchments in the sector.
He was involved in the establishment of the Mineworkers Investment Company (MIC), which was wholly owned by the Mineworkers Investment Trust, with seed capital of R3 million. This has proven to be one of the best examples of effective economic empowerment in the country.
During his tenure, NUM established the JB Marks Education Trust, which provided bursaries to mineworkers and their dependants, and a resident trade union school called the Elijah Barayi Memorial Training Centre, located in Yeoville, Johannesburg. He was also involved in establishing the Mineworkers Development Agency, which focused on the developmental needs of ex-mineworkers, their dependants and communities.
While in NUM he served on the Miners' International Federation, and was involved in exchange programmes with the United Mineworkers of Australia.
When the ANC was unbanned in 1990, he was put in charge of re-establishing the legal structures of the organisation in the PWV region and was elected its first chairperson. He often travelled around the country with Walter Sisulu visiting violence flashpoints.
He was elected unopposed as the Secretary General of the African National Congress (ANC) in 1997 and was re-elected in 2002. Among other things, his responsibilities included the development of party-to-party relations in the region, across the countries of the South, and around the world.
In December 2007 he was elected ANC Deputy President at its 52nd National Conference in Polokwane.
In July 2008 he was appointed Minister in The Presidency of the Republic of South Africa, and on 25 September 2008 was sworn in as South Africa’s third democratically elected President.
LINK: http://www.thepresidency.gov.za
Thabo Mvuyelwa Mbeki, Former President of South Africa
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Date of Birth: 18 June 1942
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Marital Status: Married
Current Positions
- President of the Republic of South Africa since 14 June 1999.
- President of the African National Congress (ANC) since 1997.
- Member of the Steering Committee of the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD).
Academic Qualifications
- Attended primary school at Idutywa and Butterworth and high school at Lovedale, Alice.
- Expelled from school as a result of student strikes (1959) and forced to continue studies at home.
- Sat for matriculation examinations at St John's High School, Umtata (1959).
- Completed British A level examinations (1960 and 1961).
- Undertook first year economics degree as an external student with the University of London (1961 - 1962).
- Master of Economics degree, University of Sussex (1966).
Career/Positions/Memberships/Other Activities
- Joined African National Congress Youth League (ANCYL) while a student at the Lovedale Institute (1956).
- Involved in underground activities in the Pretoria-Witwatersrand area after the African National Congress (ANC) was banned in 1960.
- Involved in mobilising the students and youth in support of the ANC call for a stay away in protest against the creation of a Republic (1961).
- Elected Secretary of the African Students' Association (December 1961).
- Left South Africa together with other students on instructions of the ANC (1962). Went to the then Southern Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe, the then Tanganyika, now Tanzania and the United Kingdom (UK) to study.
- Continued with political activities as a university student in the UK, mobilising the international student community against apartheid.
- Worked for the ANC office in London (1967 - 1970). Underwent military training in the then Soviet Union during this period.
- Served as Assistant Secretary to the Revolutionary Council of the ANC in Lusaka (1971).
- Sent to Botswana (1973). He was among the first ANC leaders to have contact with exiled and visiting members of the Black Consciousness Movement (BCM). As a result of his contact and discussions with the BCM, some of the leading members of this organisation found their way into the ranks of the ANC.
- The focus of his activities during this time was to consolidate the underground structures of the ANC and to mobilise the people inside South Africa.
- Engaged the Botswana Government in discussions to open an ANC office in that country. Left Botswana in 1974.
- Sent to Swaziland as acting representative of the ANC. Part of his task was the internal mobilisation and the creation of underground structures.
- Became a member of the National Executive Committee (NEC) of the ANC (1975).
- Sent to Nigeria (December 1976) as a representative of the ANC. Played a major role in assisting students from South Africa to relocate in an unfamiliar environment.
- Left Nigeria and returned to Lusaka (February 1978).
- Political Secretary in the Office of the President of the ANC (1978).
- Director of the Department of Information and Publicity (1984 - 1989).
- Re-elected to the NEC (1985). Served as Director of Information and as Secretary for Presidential Affairs.
- Member of the ANC's Political and Military Council.
- Member of the delegation that met the South African business community led by the Chairman of Anglo American, Gavin Relly, at Mfuwe, Zambia (1985).
- Led a delegation of the ANC to Dakar, Senegal, where talks were held with a delegation from the Institute for a Democratic Alternative for South Africa (IDASA) (1987).
- Led the ANC delegation which held secret talks with the South African Government from 1989 and which led to agreements about the unbanning of the ANC and the release of political prisoners.
- Part of the delegation which engaged the National Party Government in talks about talks. He participated in the Groote Schuur and Pretoria deliberations, which resulted in the agreements which became known as the Groote Schuur and Pretoria Minutes (1990).
- Participated in all subsequent negotiations leading to the adoption of the interim Constitution for the new South Africa.
- Elected Chairperson of the ANC (1993). The election to this post meant succeeding the late former President and Chairperson of the ANC, Oliver R Tambo, with whom he had a close working relationship.
- Executive Deputy President in the South African Government (1994 - 13 June 1999).
- Chairperson of the African Union (July 2002 - July 2003).
Awards/Decorations/Presentations/Bursaries
- Honorary Doctorate from Rand Afrikaans University (17 September 1999).
- Honorary Doctorate of Laws from the Glasgow Caledonian University (19 May 2000).
- Newsmaker of the Year from Pretoria Press Club (22 August 2000).
