Thulas Nxesi

Thembelani Waltermade "Thulas" Nxesi (born 9 June 1959) is a South African politician and former trade unionist who has been the Minister of Employment and Labour since May 2019.

Nxesi was born on 1 January 1959 in Matatiele in the former Cape Province.

Schooled at the height of apartheid, he was politically active from a young age as a student activist in the Azanian Students' Organisation and its successor, the South African National Student Congress; he was expelled from school on several occasions for his political activities.

By number of votes received, he was ranked 60th of the 80 ordinary members elected to the committee.

He graduated from the University of Fort Hare with a Bachelor of Arts in 1983, and he later completed a Bachelor of Education at Witwatersrand University and a higher diploma in education at the University of South Africa.

In 1985, he took up a teaching job at Ikusasa Senior Secondary School in Tembisa in the former Transvaal.

He headed the school's social studies department until 1990.

During that period, he was a founding member and ultimately secretary of the National Education Union of South Africa, which was later merged into the South African Democratic Teachers' Union (Sadtu).

In 1990, Nxesi was elected as Assistant General Secretary of the newly formed Sadtu, and he was elected as General Secretary in 1995.

A teacher by profession, Nxesi rose to prominence as the General Secretary of the South African Democratic Teachers' Union from 1995 to 2009.

He was also the President of Education International between 2004 and 2009.

In addition, from 2004 to 2009, Nxesi was the President of Education International, a global federation of teachers' unions.

He entered the National Assembly at the 2009 general election, and in 2010 he was appointed as Deputy Minister of Rural Development and Land Reform in the government of President Jacob Zuma.

During his tenure in the secretariat, which lasted until 2009, Sadtu became one of the largest affiliates of the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu).

In the 2009 general election, Nxesi won election to a seat in the National Assembly, the lower house of the South African Parliament; he stood as a candidate for the African National Congress (ANC), Cosatu's Tripartite Alliance partner.

He was one of three unionists – the others being Alina Rantsolase and Noluthando Mayende-Sibiya – who represented the ANC by way of the Tripartite Alliance.

In the aftermath of the election, the ANC announced that it would nominate Nxesi to chair Parliament's Portfolio Committee on International Relations and Cooperation.

Nxesi joined the executive in a cabinet reshuffle announced by President Jacob Zuma on 31 October 2010.

He was appointed as Deputy Minister of Rural Development and Land Reform, serving under Minister Gugile Nkwinti.

Sadtu welcomed Zuma's announcement.

A representative of the African National Congress (ANC), he has been a member of cabinet since October 2011 and the Deputy National Chairperson of the South African Communist Party (SACP) since July 2012.

The following year, Zuma promoted him to the cabinet, first as Minister of Public Works from 2011 to 2017 and then as Minister of Sport and Recreation from 2017 to 2018.

In another cabinet reshuffle, announced on 24 October 2011, Zuma promoted Nxesi to the position of Minister of Public Works.

He succeeded Gwen Mahlangu-Nkabinde, who was fired amid an investigation into a lease scandal that also implicated police commissioner Bheki Cele.

Mahlangu-Nkabinde's former Deputy Minister, Hendrietta Bogopane-Zulu, was moved to a different ministry at the same time, leaving Nxesi without a deputy.

One of Nxesi's first acts as Minister was to accept, on behalf of the cabinet, a memorandum of protest from the ANC Youth League, which had marched to the Union Buildings to demand land expropriation without compensation.

Nxesi said that he would review the ministry's workings and embark on "a listening campaign" before deciding on a strategy to turn around his new department.

A fortnight later, he responded to the lease scandal by changing the department's process for approving new leases.

Nxesi was a member of the ANC National Executive Committee from 2012 to 2017, and he was elected to his third five-year term as SACP Deputy National Chairperson in July 2022.

In the run-up to the 13th National Congress of the South African Communist Party (SACP), held at the University of Zululand in July 2012, Nxesi emerged as a likely candidate to succeed Joyce Moloi-Moropa as Deputy National Chairperson of the SACP.

He had recently been co-opted onto the party's Central Committee.

When the elections were held, he was elected unopposed, deputising Senzeni Zokwana.

Months later, at the ANC's 53rd National Conference in December 2012, Nxesi was elected to a five-year term as a member of the ANC National Executive Committee.

Despite Nxesi's perceived support for Zuma during the Nkandla saga, the Mail & Guardian observed by February 2016 that Nxesi and the SACP had "drifted apart" from Zuma.

Indeed, during ANC National Executive Committee meetings over the next year, Nxesi reportedly voiced support for both of two unsuccessful motions of no confidence in Zuma's ANC presidency, one tabled by Derek Hanekom in November 2016 and another tabled by Joel Netshitenzhe in May 2017.

At the same time, SACP National Chairperson Senzeni Zokwana's failure to support the ANC motions of no confidence apparently drew the ire of a group of Zuma opponents in the SACP, who reportedly conspired to remove Zokwana from his post and remove him with Nxesi.

Shortly after midnight on 30 March 2017, Zuma announced a cabinet reshuffle in which Nxesi was moved to a new office as Minister of Sport and Recreation.

Nxesi succeeded Fikile Mbalula in that office, and he said that his top priorities would include the transformation of sport and the promotion of school sports and youth development.

Under Zuma's successor, President Cyril Ramaphosa, Nxesi returned briefly to the Ministry of Public Works in 2018 before he was appointed to his current position in 2019.

He was also Acting Minister of Public Service and Administration from April 2022 to March 2023.