Aaron Motsoaledi

Pakishe Aaron Motsoaledi (born 7 August 1958) is a South African politician who is currently serving as the Minister of Home Affairs in the cabinet of South Africa.

Motsoaledi was born on 7 August 1958 in Phokwane, a village in the Sekhukhuneland region of the former Northern Transvaal (present-day Limpopo Province).

He was one of nine children – seven boys and two girls – born to Kgokolo Michael Motsoaledi, a school principal, and Sina Sekeku Maile.

He received 1,591 votes across roughly 3,600 ballots, making him the 56th-most popular member of the 80 candidates elected.

As a child during apartheid, he was influenced by the arrest of a neighbour on a pass law offence, and later by the Soweto uprising of 1976.

In addition, his paternal uncle was Elias Motsoaledi, a Rivonia Trialist and stalwart of the African National Congress (ANC).

After matriculating at the Setotolwane High School, Motsoaledi completed a pre-medical course at the University of the North at Turfloop, where he was involved in anti-apartheid student politics.

He went on to study medicine at the University of Natal, where he served on the medical school's student representative council from 1980, succeeding Zweli Mkhize as its president in 1982.

He was also a founding member of the Azanian Students' Organisation (AZASO) and was elected as its national correspondence secretary, serving under president Joe Phaahla.

He attended the launch of the United Democratic Front (UDF) in Mitchells Plain in 1983 and helped establish UDF structures at the University of Natal.

Later that year, he graduated with a Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery.

Motsoaledi practiced as a doctor in the Northern Transvaal, including through his own surgery in Jane Furse.

At the same time, from 1986 to 1994, he was chairperson of the Sekhukhune Advice Office, which provided legal advice to anti-apartheid activists; in this capacity he worked with Nelson Diale and others.

He was also chairperson of the Hlahlolanang Health and Nutrition Education Project in 1989.

In addition, he maintained links to the outlawed ANC, including to an underground Umkhonto we Sizwe unit in Sekhukhuneland.

When the ANC was unbanned in 1990 during the negotiations to end apartheid, Motsoaledi became involved in running the party's overt structures in the Northern Transvaal.

He was deputy chairperson of the Northern Transvaal branch from 1991 to 1992, and in 1994, ahead of the upcoming democratic elections, he was a member of the party's elections task team in the province.

After the end of apartheid, he represented the ANC in the Limpopo Provincial Legislature for three terms from 1994 to 2009.

During that time, he served near-continuously in the Executive Council of Limpopo, holding several different portfolios under Premiers Ngoako Ramatlhodi and Sello Moloto.

In the first post-apartheid elections in April 1994, Motsoaledi was elected to represent the ANC in the newly established Limpopo Provincial Legislature (then still named after the Northern Transvaal).

He was also appointed to the Executive Council of Ngoako Ramatlhodi, the Premier of Limpopo, who named him as the province's inaugural Member of the Executive Council (MEC) for Education.

He remained in the portfolio until 1 July 1997, when Ramatlhodi announced that Motsoaledi had been sacked and replaced by Joe Phaahla, his former AZASO colleague.

He retreated briefly from the provincial executive, serving as an ordinary Member of the Provincial Legislature.

However, he returned to the Executive Council on 24 August 1998, when Ramatlhodi appointed him to succeed Benny Boshielo as MEC for Transport; his reappointment reportedly followed an intervention by ANC deputy president Jacob Zuma.

After the 1999 general election, he swopped portfolios with Tshenuwani Farisani, becoming MEC for Agriculture, Land and Environment until 2004.

Thereafter, from 2004 to 2009 under Premier Sello Moloto, he returned to his former office as MEC for Education.

Throughout this period, he was a member of the Provincial Executive Committee of the ANC's Limpopo branch.

Indeed, he was viewed as a possible candidate to run against Ramatlhodi for the position of ANC Provincial Chairperson.

A long-time member of the ANC Provincial Executive Committee, he was elected to the National Executive Committee for the first time in December 2007.

In December 2007, he graduated from the Provincial Executive Committee at the ANC's 52nd National Conference in Polokwane, where he was elected for the first time to the ANC's National Executive Committee.

He was previously the Minister of Health from 2009 to 2019.

A member of the National Assembly since 2009, he is also a member of the National Executive Committee of the African National Congress (ANC).

Motsoaledi was born in Limpopo and trained as a medical doctor at the University of Natal, where he was active in the anti-apartheid student movement.

In subsequent decades, he practiced as a doctor in Sekhukhuneland while remaining involved in political activism.

After joining the National Assembly in the 2009 general election, Motsoaledi was appointed as Minister of Health in the cabinet of President Jacob Zuma.

He held the position throughout Zuma's presidency, during which time he developed the policy and legislative framework for a new system of National Health Insurance.

He also presided over a transformation in South Africa's policy on HIV/AIDS and a concomitant four-fold expansion in the size of the country's antiretroviral programme.

In the 2009 general election, Motsoaledi did not seek re-election to the Limpopo Provincial Legislature but instead won a seat in the National Assembly, the lower house of the South African Parliament.

Zuma's successor, President Cyril Ramaphosa, appointed Motsoaledi to his current portfolio as Minister of Home Affairs after the 2019 general election.

He was elected to his fourth consecutive term on the ANC National Executive Committee in December 2022.