Makhenkesi Stofile

Makhenkesi Arnold Stofile (27 December 1944 – 15 August 2016) was a South African politician and anti-apartheid activist who served as the second Premier of the Eastern Cape from 1997 to 2004.

Stofile was born on 27 December 1944 on a farm in Adelaide in the former Cape Province.

He was the eldest of seven sons born to Simon and Tozana Stofile, who were farm labourers.

In 1952, his family moved to Port Elizabeth, where Stofile matriculated at Newell High School in 1964.

He had entered politics in 1963 as a teenaged member of the African Students Association, a front organisation for the anti-apartheid African National Congress (ANC), which had been banned since 1960.

Thereafter he worked as a machine operator at a textile factory in Port Elizabeth from 1965 to 1968.

He left this job after he received a bursary from the Presbyterian Church of Southern Africa, apparently at the urging of Reverend J. J. R. Jolobe.

Stofile had been involved in non-racial sports administration at several levels since 1965, particularly in rugby, cricket, and netball; among other positions, he served as president of the Victoria East Rugby Union and as a member of the executive council of the South African Rugby Football Union.

At the same time, he had joined the ANC underground in 1970, and in 1983 he became involved in the United Democratic Front, both as regional secretary in the Border Region and as a member of the national executive.

In 1970, he was recruited into the underground of the ANC, and he rose through the ranks to become chairperson of the local area political committee from 1979 to 1986.

According to one of his political aides, he received military training with Umkhonto we Sizwe.

He went on to study at the University of Fort Hare, where he completed four degrees: a Bachelor of Arts in 1971, a Bachelor of Theology in 1974, an Honours in theology in 1975, and a Master's in theology in 1979.

He was himself an accomplished rugby player – playing scrum half and wing, he was captain of the Fort Hare First XV and of the Border team – and he coached rugby at the junior and club level from 1974 onwards.

He had also been ordained as a minister in the Presbyterian Church while a postgraduate student in 1975.

While working in academia, Stofile became increasingly politically active in the anti-apartheid movement.

He completed a diploma in theology at the University of Tübingen in 1981, and a second Master's at Princeton University in 1983.

When the United Democratic Front (UDF) was established in 1983, Stofile was elected as UDF regional secretary in the Border Region of the Eastern Cape.

He held both offices from 1983 until his arrest in 1986.

In 1984, Stofile established a dedicated "cultural desk" within the UDF, which included sports matters.

Later the same year, he spearheaded a successful UDF campaign against a planned All Blacks tour of South Africa; representing the UDF, he travelled to New Zealand to provide evidence in a related court case.

Upon his return to South Africa, he was detained for four months.

He therefore played an important role in establishing the front's structures in the area; for example, he recruited Matthew Goniwe, one of the Cradock Four who were assassinated in 1985.

He was also elected to the UDF's national executive committee.

After his graduation, he remained at Fort Hare until 1986 as a senior lecturer in theology, systematic theology, and philosophy of religion.

In early 1986, Stofile was a member of a UDF delegation to a strategy meeting with exiled ANC leaders in Sweden.

Upon his return, he was arrested in the Ciskei, accused of harbouring terrorists.

In 1987, he was convicted of a political offence and imprisoned in the Ciskei for three years.

In May 1987, he was convicted under the Internal Security Act of terrorism, illegal possession of weapons, and furthering the aims of the outlawed ANC.

He was sentenced to 11 years in prison.

Himself an accomplished rugby player, Stofile was also an active figure in non-racial sports administration in the Eastern Cape, and he co-founded the South African Council on Sport in 1989.

However, he served only three years: he was released in 1989 ahead of the negotiations to end apartheid.

After the end of apartheid in 1994, Stofile joined the National Assembly as the ANC's inaugural Majority Chief Whip.

He was also the national Treasurer of the ANC from 1994 to 1997 and its Provincial Chairperson in the Eastern Cape from 1996 to 2006.

He held that position until February 1997, when he returned to his home province to replace Raymond Mhlaba as Premier of the Eastern Cape.

After that, he was Minister of Sport and Recreation from 2004 to 2010.

He was also a member of the National Executive Committee of the African National Congress (ANC).

Born in the Eastern Cape, Stofile was an ordained minister of the Presbyterian Church of Southern Africa and spent much of the apartheid era as a theologian at the University of Fort Hare.

Stofile returned to the national government after the April 2004 general election, appointed as Minister of Sport and Recreation in the second cabinet of President Thabo Mbeki.

During his tenure in the ministry, South Africa hosted the 2010 FIFA World Cup.

After President Jacob Zuma sacked Stofile from the cabinet in October 2010, he served as South African Ambassador to Germany between 2011 and 2015, when he retired.