Panyaza Lesufi

Andrek "Panyaza" Lesufi (born 4 September 1968) is a South African politician who was appointed the seventh Premier of Gauteng in October 2022.

Andrek Lesufi was born on 4 September 1968 in Edenvale, then part of South Africa's Transvaal Province and now part of Gauteng.

His family relocated to Tembisa after they were forcibly removed from Edenvale under the apartheid-era Group Areas Act.

He was given the nickname "Panyaza" because of his love of football.

He attended Tlamatlama Lower Primary School and Tshepisa Higher Primary School and he matriculated from Boitumelong Senior Secondary School in Tembisa, where he became involved in student politics.

He studied at the University of Natal and later obtained a Master's degree in business administration.

While an undergraduate, Lesufi was elected president of the student representative council at the University of Natal's Durban campus.

He was a member of various Congress-aligned students' organisations, including the Congress of South African Students (COSAS), the South African Student Congress, and the Tembisa Student Congress.

He also managed outreach at the Tembisa Careers Centre and worked in non-governmental and community organisations, such as the Community Policing Forum and National Education Crisis Committee, which were aligned to the United Democratic Front (UDF) and later were part of the Mass Democratic Movement.

During the political violence of the 1980s and early 1990s, he was active in UDF-aligned community Self-Defence Units.

Lesufi was detained twice for his activism, in 1989 at Modderbee Prison for defying the prevailing state of emergency regulations, and in 1995 at Durban City Prison.

When the African National Congress (ANC) was unbanned by the apartheid government in 1990, he helped rebuild its internal structures in the Transvaal, becoming secretary of his local ANC branch in Tembisa.

After the end of apartheid in 1994, Lesufi held several positions in public administration under the new government formed by the ANC.

When the Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Municipality was established in 2000, he was appointed spokesperson to its inaugural mayor, Bavumile Vilakazi.

He was later a spokesperson for the National Prosecuting Authority.

He served on a task team appointed by the national Minister of Social Development, Zola Skweyiya, to establish the South African Social Security Agency, launched in 2005, and worked for the Minister of Police, Nathi Mthethwa, in connection with the establishment of the Hawks in 2008.

He is a member of the African National Congress (ANC) and has served on its Gauteng Provincial Executive Committee since 2007; he was appointed the party's Provincial Chairperson in June 2022.

He is also a member of the South African Communist Party.

In 2007, he was elected to the Provincial Executive Committee of the ANC in Gauteng.

A former anti-apartheid and education activist, Lesufi began his political career in public administration and communications in the government of Ekurhuleni, Gauteng and in the national government, where he worked in the Department of Basic Education from 2009 to 2014.

After the 2009 general election, he became an advisor to Gauteng politician Angie Motshekga, who was newly appointed as the inaugural Minister of Basic Education.

In July 2009, he was offered, but turned down, the position of Ekurhuleni municipal manager; he said he had declined due to his "other commitments in national government", and sources told the Sowetan that he had declined because of his loyalty to Motshekga.

At the ANC's next provincial conference in 2010, Lesufi ran unsuccessfully for the position of Provincial Secretary, coming third in an election in which he won 197 votes against Pule Mlambo's 200 and David Makhura's 485.

In July 2011, he was appointed head of communications and spokesperson in the Department of Basic Education; the National Press Club named him Media Liaison Officer of the Year 2012.

He was previously Member of the Executive Council (MEC) for Education in the Gauteng provincial government between May 2014 and October 2022, with the exception of a two-day stint as MEC for Finance in May 2019.

He was first elected to the Gauteng Provincial Legislature in 2014.

In late March 2014, he was appointed for a month as acting director-general in the department, again working under Minister Motshekga.

In the 2014 general election, Lesufi was elected as a Member of the Gauteng Provincial Legislature, ranked tenth on the ANC's party list.

He was named Member of the Executive Council (MEC) for Education in the provincial government of Gauteng Premier David Makhura.

Eight years later, however, in June 2018, he was elected Deputy Provincial Chairperson of the ANC in Gauteng; the conference also elected Makhura as Provincial Chairperson.

Lesufi won the position narrowly, beating another MEC, Lebogang Maile, by only 22 votes, earning 623 votes to Maile's 601.

According to the Mail & Guardian, he secured the position by collaborating with Parks Tau, who was reportedly Makhura's favourite deputy; Tau withdrew from the deputy chair race and was instead elected Provincial Treasurer, apparently on the basis of an agreement with Lesufi's supporters.

Simultaneously, he was acting MEC for Social Development between November 2019 and June 2020.

He was re-elected to the legislature in the 2019 general election, this time ranked second on the ANC's party list.

In May, in a post-election cabinet reshuffle, Makhura appointed Lesufi as MEC for Finance and e-Government.

A day after the new MECs were sworn in, however, Makhura reinstated Lesufi as MEC for Education and Youth Development, saying that he was responding to public calls – "from society, the education sector and the movement in general" – to keep Lesufi for a second term in the education portfolio, where he was popular.

Basic Education Minister Motshekga had also expressed her view that it would be "a big mistake" to move Lesufi from the education portfolio.

From November 2019 to June 2020, Lesufi served simultaneously as acting MEC for Social Development, until Nomathemba Mokgethi was appointed to replace the late Thuliswa Nkabinde-Khawe.

During the same period, Lesufi ascended through the ranks of the ANC in Gauteng.

After serving three terms as Tembisa branch secretary, he spent eight years as deputy regional secretary of the ANC's branch in the Kyalami region and then became the inaugural deputy regional secretary of its Ekurhuleni branch.