Nomvula Mokonyane

Nomvula Paula Mokonyane (born 28 June 1963) is a South African politician who is currently the First Deputy Secretary-General of the African National Congress (ANC).

Mokonyane was born on 28 June 1963 in Kagiso, a township in Krugersdorp on the West Rand of the Transvaal (now part of Gauteng province).

She had six elder sisters and five elder brothers.

She matriculated at Mosupatsela Secondary School. In later years, she attended tertiary certificate courses in Sweden and the United States.

According to Mokonyane, she became active in the anti-apartheid struggle in the late 1970s at the age of fifteen, first as a member of the Young Christian Students and then as a founding member of the Congress of South African Students in 1979. In the 1980s, she was a member of the United Democratic Front; an organiser for the Federation of Transvaal Women (FEDTRAW); a shop steward in the Commercial, Catering and Allied Workers' Union of South Africa; and a leader in the civic movement of her hometown through the Kagiso Residents' Organisation.

Journalist Ferial Haffajee later praised her "long history of community activism on the West Rand".

Mokonyane was arrested for her activism during the 1985 state of emergency, shortly after her wedding and while in the first trimester of a pregnancy.

She gave birth while still detained under the Internal Security Act.

She was first elected as a Member of the Gauteng Provincial Legislature in 1994 and she served as a Member of the Executive Council in Gauteng from 1996 to 2009.

In South Africa's first post-apartheid election in 1994, Mokonyane was elected as an ordinary Member of the Gauteng Provincial Legislature.

She served on the national executive of the ANC Women's League and in February 1995 was one of eleven senior members of the league, reportedly led by Adelaide Tambo, who staged a walkout in protest of Winnie Madikizela-Mandela's leadership.

In 1996, she was appointed as a Member of the Executive Council (MEC) in the provincial government of Gauteng, with responsibility for agriculture, conservation and environment.

In this capacity she championed a successful initiative to have Sterkfontein declared a World Heritage Site.

In 1997, Mokonyane testified about her experience in detention while representing FEDTRAW at a women's hearing of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

By 1997, she was the Regional Chairperson of the local ANC branch in the West Rand, and by 2007 she was a member of the Provincial Executive Committee of the ANC in Gauteng.

She was also an active member of the South African Communist Party (SACP), a close partner of the ANC; she was Provincial Treasurer of the SACP in Gauteng by 1997 and ultimately served two terms on the SACP Central Committee from 1998 to 2007.

In subsequent reshuffles of the Executive Council, she was appointed MEC for Safety and Liaison from 1999 to 2004 and then MEC for Housing from 2004 to 2009; she succeeded Paul Mashatile in both positions.

Over the same period, Mokonyane held various positions in her political party, the African National Congress (ANC).

Known in the media as "Mama Action", Mokonyane has been a member of the ANC National Executive Committee since 2007 and formerly served on the national executive of the ANC Women's League and on the Central Committee of the South African Communist Party.

In March 2022, the Zondo Commission recommended that Mokonyane should be prosecuted on charges of corruption in connection with allegations that she accepted bribes from Bosasa.

In October 2007, while Housing MEC, Mokonyane launched an unsuccessful campaign to succeed Mbhazima Shilowa as Provincial Chairperson of the ANC in Gauteng.

At the party's provincial conference in October 2007, she was elected Deputy Provincial Chairperson instead, serving under Paul Mashatile.

Later the same year, at the ANC's Polokwane conference in December 2007, she was elected for the first time to a seat on the party's National Executive Committee; by number of votes received, she was ranked 37th of the 80 candidates elected.

She was the first female Premier of Gauteng from 2009 to 2014 and subsequently served in the national government as Minister of Water and Sanitation from 2014 to 2018, Minister of Communications in 2018, and Minister of Environmental Affairs from 2018 to 2019.

Born in Gauteng, Mokonyane was a labour, community, and gender activist during apartheid.

Following the 2009 general election, Mokonyane, then the Deputy Provincial Chairperson of the ANC in Gauteng, was elected to succeed Paul Mashatile as Premier.

After a full five-year term as Premier, she was appointed to the cabinet of President Jacob Zuma, where she served in the Water and Sanitation portfolio throughout Zuma's second term.

Mokonyane was Premier of Gauteng from 6 May 2009 to 20 May 2014.

The fifth incumbent and the first woman to hold the position, she was elected unopposed after the 2009 general election, during which she was re-elected to her seat in the provincial legislature.

She was nominated to the premiership by outgoing Premier Paul Mashatile, who was also a Member of the Provincial Legislature, but her election was presumably the result of an instruction to the ANC caucus from the ANC National Executive Committee, which had announced that Mokonyane was its preferred candidate.

Her ascension to the position was viewed as a "slap in the face" for Mashatile, who remained senior to her inside the ANC.

In the months after her election, Mokonyane embarked on a controversial restructuring of the Gauteng provincial government.

The Sowetan reported that the Gauteng ANC was divided by factionalism, with opposing groups aligned respectively to Mokonyane, Mashatile, and leadership contender Angie Motshekga.

In particular, the Gauteng branch of the ANC Youth League protested Mokonyane's appointment, calling instead for Mashatile's re-election.

Ahead of the provincial ANC's next leadership elections, Mokonyane was presumed to have the support of the National Executive Committee in her bid to succeed Mashatile as ANC Provincial Chairperson.

However, when the elective conference was held in May 2010, Mashatile won decisively, winning re-election by 531 votes to Mokonyane's 356.

Mokonyane was succeeded as Deputy Provincial Chairperson by Gwen Ramokgopa and declined to seek re-election to an ordinary seat on the ANC Provincial Executive Committee.

In the aftermath of the vote, in what was viewed as an assertion of dominance over Mokonyane's office, the newly elected ANC provincial executive instructed Mokonyane to reshuffle her Executive Council to elevate several of Mashatile's allies.

When Cyril Ramaphosa succeeded Zuma as President, he retained Mokonyane in his cabinet before demoting her after the 2019 general election.

Mokonyane went on to lead the ANC's internal organising department at Luthuli House until her election to the Deputy Secretary-General post at the party's 55th National Conference in December 2022.