William Mothipa "Honk Honk" Madisha is a South African trade unionist. Madisha is the former President of both the Congress of South African Trade Unions (from 1999 to 2008) and the South African Democratic Teachers Union (from 1996 to 2008).
Madisha grew up in Atteridgeville, Pretoria, South Africa, where he was a member of the United Democratic Front. He studied teaching at Transvaal College of Education.
Madisha was fired from his position as COSATU president and expelled from the organisation on 27 February 2008; [1] he was also fired from SADTU on 29 July 2008. [2] He had been under suspension since the second half of 2007 while a probe into the disappearance of a large cash donation was being carried out by COSATU; he had received the suspension for making public allegations concerning the estimated R500,000 donation from businessman Charles Modise to the South African Communist Party. He also was expelled from the SACP's central committee.
A noted dissenter from the predominant opinion of COSATU, he had publicly backed Thabo Mbeki for the presidency at the African National Congress's 2007 national conference in Polokwane while the trade union federation had adopted a resolution backing Jacob Zuma. He currently backs the Congress of the People (COPE) breakaway party being formed by Mosiuoa Lekota, the former defence minister in Mbeki's second government.
The African National Congress (ANC) is the Republic of South Africa's governing political party. It has been the ruling party of post-apartheid South Africa since the election of Nelson Mandela in the 1994 election, winning every election since then. Cyril Ramaphosa, the incumbent President of South Africa, has served as leader of the ANC since 18 December 2017.
Thabo Mvuyelwa Mbeki is a South African politician who served as the second president of South Africa from 16 June 1999 to 24 September 2008. On 20 September 2008, with about nine months left in his second term, Mbeki announced his resignation after being recalled by the National Executive Committee of the ANC, following a conclusion by judge C. R. Nicholson of improper interference in the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA), including the prosecution of Jacob Zuma for corruption. On 12 January 2009, the Supreme Court of Appeal unanimously overturned judge Nicholson's judgement but the resignation stood.
The South African Communist Party (SACP) is a communist party in South Africa. It was founded in 1921, was declared illegal in 1950 by the governing National Party, and participated in the struggle to end the apartheid system. It is a partner of the Tripartite Alliance with the African National Congress and the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) and through this it influences the South African government. The party's Central Committee is the party's highest decision-making structure.
The Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) is a South African HIV/AIDS activist organisation which was co-founded by the HIV-positive activist Zackie Achmat in 1998. TAC is rooted in the experiences, direct action tactics and anti-apartheid background of its founder. TAC has been credited with forcing the reluctant government of former South African President Thabo Mbeki to begin making antiretroviral drugs available to South Africans.
Mantombazana 'Manto' Edmie Tshabalala-Msimang was a South African politician. She was Deputy Minister of Justice from 1996 to 1999 and served as Minister of Health from 1999 to 2008 under President Thabo Mbeki. She also served as Minister in the Presidency under President Kgalema Motlanthe from September 2008 to May 2009.
The Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) is a trade union federation in South Africa. It was founded in 1985 and is the largest of the country's three main trade union federations, with 21 affiliated trade unions.
Jacob Gedleyihlekisa Mhlanganyelwa Zuma is a South African politician who served as the fourth President of South Africa from the 2009 general election until his resignation on 14 February 2018. Zuma is also referred to by his initials JZ and his clan name Msholozi.
Zwelinzima Vavi is the former general secretary of the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), and vice-chairperson of the Millennium Labour Council.
Parliamentary elections were held in Zimbabwe on 31 March 2005 to elect members to the Zimbabwe House of Assembly. All of the 120 elected seats in the 150-seat House of Assembly were up for election.
The National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA) is the biggest single trade union in South Africa with more than 338,000 members, and prior to its expulsion on 8 November 2014, the largest affiliate of the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), the country's largest trade union federation.
The South African Democratic Teachers Union (SADTU) is the largest trade union for teachers in South Africa. It is allied to the African National Congress and is an affiliate of the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU).
Mbhazima Samuel (Sam) Shilowa, correct Tsonga spelling "Xilowa" is a South African politician. A former Premier of Gauteng province while a member of the African National Congress, Shilowa left the party to help form the opposition Congress of the People, with whom he was briefly the Deputy President. In the 2009 general election, Shilowa was elected to parliament with COPE.
Trade unions in South Africa have a history dating back to the 1880s. From the beginning unions could be viewed as a reflection of the racial disunity of the country, with the earliest unions being predominantly for white workers. Through the turbulent years of 1948–1991 trade unions played an important part in developing political and economic resistance, and eventually were one of the driving forces in realising the transition to an inclusive democratic government.
Kgalema Petrus Motlanthe is a South African politician who served as President of South Africa between 25 September 2008 and 9 May 2009, following the resignation of Thabo Mbeki.
The Movement for Democratic Change – Tsvangirai (MDC–T) was a center-left political party and was the main opposition party in the House of Assembly of Zimbabwe ahead of the 2018 elections. After the split of the original Movement for Democratic Change in 2005, the MDC–T remained the major opposition faction, while a smaller faction, the Movement for Democratic Change – Ncube, or MDC–N, was led by Welshman Ncube. The two parties re-united in 2018 under the original name, the Movement for Democratic Change.
The Congress of the People (COPE) is a South African political party formed in 2008 by former members of the African National Congress (ANC). The party was founded by former ANC members Mosiuoa Lekota, Mbhazima Shilowa and Mluleki George to contest the 2009 general election. The party was announced following a national convention held in Sandton on 1 November 2008, and was founded at a congress held in Bloemfontein on 16 December 2008. The name echoes the 1955 Congress of the People at which the Freedom Charter was adopted by the ANC and other parties, a name strongly contested by the ANC in a legal move dismissed by the Pretoria High Court.
Vusumzi "Vusi" Pikoli is a South African advocate and the former head of South Africa's National Prosecuting Authority. He is noted for instigating criminal charges against disgraced South African police commissioner Jackie Selebi and ANC president Jacob Zuma. In 2008 he was suspended from his duties by President Thabo Mbeki, a close confidant of Selebi, and then subsequently fired by Mbeki's successor, Kgalema Motlanthe, who is an ally of Zuma. As such, opposition parties and sections of the press have claimed Pikoli is the victim of two separate political conspiracies. In October 2014 Pikoli was appointed as the Western Cape's first police ombudsman by Premier Helen Zille, whose choice was unanimously backed by the provincial legislature's standing committee on community safety.
Mxolisi Nkosi is the Ambassador and Permanent Representative of South Africa to the United Nations in Geneva and Other International Organisations in Switzerland. He has served in several senior positions in the Foreign Ministry of post-Apartheid South Africa. Between February 2012 and March 2016 was the South African Ambassador to the Kingdom of Belgium, the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg and the Head of Mission to the European Union. Until his appointment as South Africa’s Ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva, he was the Head of Global Governance and Continental Agenda in the South African Foreign Ministry, and President Cyril Ramaphosa’s Sherpa to G7 Outreach Sessions.
Thembelani Waltermade Nxesi, popularly known as Thulas Nxesi, is a South African politician. A member of the African National Congress, he is the Minister of Employment and Labour. He was previously Minister of Public Works, Minister of Sports and Recreation, served a different term as Minister of Public Works, and was Deputy Minister of Rural Development and Land Reform.
Phumzile John Gomomo was South African Unionist and activist.
This South African biographical article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |
This article related to a South African trade union is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |