Thandi Modise

Thandi Ruth Modise (born 25 December 1959) is a South African politician who is currently serving as the Minister of Defence and Military Veterans.

Modise was born on 25 December 1959 in Huhudi, a township near Vryburg in what is now the North West province (then the northern part of the Cape province).

Her father, Frans Modise, was a railway worker (a stoker) and a member of the African National Congress (ANC), which was banned by the apartheid government the year after Modise's birth.

She was the youngest of six children.

Modise has been a member of the African National Congress (ANC) since the 1976 Soweto uprising, when she dropped out of high school to join Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK), the ANC's armed wing, in exile.

Modise was educated at Barolong High School until she dropped out in July 1976 during the Soweto uprising.

The student protests were given particular fervor in Huhudi because of the imminent threat that the township would be incorporated into the so-called independent homeland of Bophuthatswana.

Later in July, Modise, with some former classmates, fled to Botswana, crossing the border by foot, and joined the ANC in exile.

Modise received preliminary political education in Tanzania and then received military training at various Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK) camps in Angola and later in Maputo, Mozambique, becoming one of the few women in MK's famous "June 16" detachment.

After her training she worked in MK camps as a political commissar, a section commissar, and ultimately a commander.

She also sang soprano in a recreational MK choir.

Modise faced various charges related to her MK activities between 1976 and 1978, including that she had trained with MK, plotted to commit arson, propagated the aims of the banned ANC, conducted reconnaissance with the intention to commit sabotage, possessed illegal weapons and explosives, and recruited for the ANC.

In 1978 she returned to South Africa as a trained guerrilla operative for MK and from 1980 to 1988 she was imprisoned under the Terrorism Act for her anti-apartheid activism.

In January 1978, shortly after her 19th birthday, Modise used a false passport to cross the Swazi border into South Africa, where she worked underground as an MK operative.

She had received topographical training and her primary task was reconnaissance of potential targets for sabotage and other guerrilla attacks.

She was based variously in Johannesburg, in Diepkloof, Soweto, and in Eldorado Park, and she occasionally crossed back into Swaziland to report back to the MK regional command stationed there.

Over the course of two days in March 1978, she planted homemade incendiary devices, concealed in matchboxes, inside two OK Bazaars and Edgars stores in Johannesburg.

Modise was arrested on 31 October 1979 in Eldorado Park, where she was completing a new MK assignment which involved political mobilisation through a network of underground ANC cells in the area.

According to the police, she was arrested on the basis of a tip-off which identified her as a terrorist.

She was detained without trial during five months of interrogation at the notorious John Vorster Square.

She later told a judge that, though she was pregnant during the first months of her detention, she had been intimidated and assaulted by police officers.

She and her co-accused first appeared in the Johannesburg Magistrate's Court in May 1980.

She was convicted of three charges under the Terrorism Act and on 7 November 1980 was sentenced to a total of 16 years' imprisonment – two eight-year sentences run concurrently.

Modise served her full eight-year sentence (less one day) in Pretoria Central Prison, Kroonstad Women's Prison, and Klerksdorp Women's Prison.

While in prison, she completed her matriculation certificate and a Bachelor's degree in industrial psychology and economics.

She was released in November 1988.

Modise has also held various senior positions in the ANC, including as Deputy President of the ANC Women's League from 1993 to 2003 under Winnie Madikizela-Mandela; Deputy Secretary-General of the ANC from 2007 to 2012 under Jacob Zuma; and member of the National Executive Committee for several terms, including from 2017 to present.

She was elected to the South African Parliament in South Africa's first democratic election in 1994.

In South Africa's first post-apartheid election in April 1994, Modise was elected to represent the ANC in the National Assembly, the lower house of South Africa's new Parliament.

She was also a member of the Robben Island Museum Council from 1994 to 2010.

After ten years in the National Assembly, she served as the Speaker of the North West Provincial Legislature from 2004 to 2009 before becoming Premier in 2010.

She next returned to the executive branch of government in August 2021, when President Cyril Ramaphosa appointed her to replace Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula as Defence Minister.

She held her seat until the 2004 general election and during that period, from 1998 onwards, served as chairperson of the Portfolio Committee on Defence and Joint Standing Committee on Defence.

Subsequently she was Speaker of the North West Provincial Legislature from 2004 to 2009.

The Mail & Guardian reported that following the 2009 general election, the North West branch of the ANC supported a proposal to elect Modise as Premier of the North West.

She was previously the Premier of the North West from 2010 to 2014, Chairperson of the National Council of Provinces from 2014 to 2019, and Speaker of the National Assembly from 2019 to 2021.

Maureen Modiselle was appointed instead – but only until 19 November 2010, when Modise succeeded her as Premier.

During her tenure, she had an increasingly difficult relationship (which she described in 2011 as "a bit of a headache") with Supra Mahumapelo, then the ANC Provincial Chairperson in the North West and the Speaker of the North West Provincial Legislature.

Modise was Premier during the Marikana massacre in the North West in 2012.

She remained in office as Premier until the next general election in 2014, when she was succeeded by Mahumapelo.