Cassel Mathale | |
|---|---|
| Deputy Minister of Police | |
| Assumed office 29 May 2019 | |
| President | Cyril Ramaphosa |
| Minister | Bheki Cele |
| Preceded by | Bongani Mkongi |
| Deputy Minister of Small Business Development | |
| In office 26 February 2018 –7 May 2019 | |
| President | Cyril Ramaphosa |
| Minister | Lindiwe Zulu |
| Preceded by | Nomathemba November |
| Succeeded by | Rosemary Capa |
| 3rd Premier of Limpopo | |
| In office 3 March 2009 –15 July 2013 | |
| President | Jacob Zuma |
| Preceded by | Sello Moloto |
| Succeeded by | Stanley Mathabatha |
| Provincial Chairperson of the African National Congress in Limpopo | |
| In office 17 July 2008 –March 2013 | |
| Deputy | Dickson Masemola |
| Preceded by | Sello Moloto |
| Succeeded by | Stanley Mathabatha |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Cassel Charlie Mathale 23 January 1961 Tzaneen,Transvaal Union of South Africa |
| Political party | African National Congress |
| Alma mater | University of the Western Cape |
Cassel Mathale (born 23 January 1961) is a South African politician who was the third Premier of Limpopo between March 2009 and July 2013. He is currently the Deputy Minister of Police in the South African government and before that was Deputy Minister of Small Business Development from February 2018 to May 2019.
Formerly an anti-apartheid activist in the United Democratic Front,Mathale began his political career in the Limpopo provincial legislature and in the Limpopo branch of the African National Congress (ANC). He served as Provincial Secretary of the ANC in Limpopo from 2002 to 2008,when he was elected the party's Provincial Chairperson. Additionally,from December 2008 he was a Member of the Executive Council for Roads and Transport in the Limpopo provincial government under Premier Sello Moloto. When Moloto resigned in March 2009,Mathale became acting Premier and then was formally elected as Premier by the provincial legislature.
Though re-elected as ANC Provincial Chairperson in December 2011,Mathale lost the position when the ANC National Executive Committee disbanded the ANC Provincial Executive Committee in March 2013,amid a scandal which appeared to implicate Mathale and his close ally Julius Malema in improper conduct. Several months later,the national ANC withdrew its support for Mathale's premiership and asked him to resign. He did so on 15 July 2013. After his resignation from the Limpopo government in July 2013,Mathale was sworn in as a Member of the National Assembly. Several years into Mathale's tenure in Parliament,President Cyril Ramaphosa appointed him Deputy Minister of Small Business Development in February 2018 and then Deputy Minister of Police in May 2019.
Cassel Charlie Mathale was born on 23 January 1961 [1] in Tzaneen outside Polokwane in what was then the Northern Transvaal,now Limpopo province. [2] He matriculated at Phangasasa High School in Tzaneen and earned a Bachelor's degree in social sciences from the University of the Western Cape in Cape Town. [1]
In the 1980s and early 1990s,Mathale was politically active in anti-apartheid organisations in the Northern Transvaal,including local and regional branches of the Azanian Students Organisation,the Muhlava Youth Congress and Northern Transvaal Youth Congress,the Tzaneen Education Crisis Committee,and,once it had been established,the South African Students Congress. [1] He was a member of the regional executive committee of the United Democratic Front (UDF) in Northern Transvaal from 1986 to 1990 and was president of the South African Youth Congress in Northern Transvaal in 1990. [1] He was detained between 1986 and 1989 under the Terrorism Act. [2]
Additionally,in 1990,Mathale was appointed as a member of its interim leadership core of the Northern Transvaal branch of the African National Congress (ANC),which had recently been unbanned by the apartheid government and was re-establishing its structures inside South Africa. [1] Subsequently he sat on the regional executive committee of the ANC in Northern Transvaal from 1990 to 1991 and again from 1993 to 1996. [1]
In South Africa's first democratic elections in 1994,Mathale was elected as a Member of the Limpopo Provincial Legislature and also became Commissioner for Youth Affairs in the provincial government. [1] He served on the Provincial Executive Committee of the Limpopo ANC between 1994 and 1997. [3] He left the provincial legislature and government in 1996,and the ANC provincial executive in 1997, [3] but in 1996 was elected to a two-year term as a member of the ANC Youth League's National Executive Committee. [1] In subsequent years he held a variety of positions in ANC structures in Limpopo:he was regional secretary for the ANC's North East Limpopo region from 1998 to 2000,a member of the regional executive committee of the ANC's Mopani region in 2000,and a member of the branch executive committee at a local ANC branch in Nkowankowa from 2001 to 2002. [1]
In 2002,Mathale was elected Provincial Secretary of the ANC in Limpopo,one of the most senior leadership positions in the provincial party. [1] Although it was a full-time position based at ANC headquarters,the Mail &Guardian observed that Mathale was simultaneously a "well-known entrepreneur" in Limpopo,with directorships in at least ten companies in the mining,construction,farming,and hospitality sectors. [4]
At the same time,towards the end of his second term as Provincial Secretary,Mathale launched a bid to replace Sello Moloto as Provincial Chairperson of the ANC in Limpopo. He was supported by the Limpopo branch of the ANC Youth League,which at that time was led by league provincial secretary Julius Malema. [2] [5] The league had turned against Moloto when Moloto supported incumbent ANC President Thabo Mbeki in his succession battle with ANC Deputy President Jacob Zuma,who ultimately ousted Mbeki at the ANC's 52nd National Conference. [6] In early 2008,Mathale and Moloto's rivalry became highly divisive in the Limpopo ANC;their respective supporters clashed violently on several occasions. [2] [5]
The Limpopo ANC held its elective conference in July 2008 at the University of Venda and,on 17 July,it elected Mathale as Provincial Chairperson of the ANC in Limpopo. [1] [7] Mathale beat Moloto by more than 200 votes. [2] Two weeks later,the Mathale-led Provincial Executive Committee declined a request from the national ANC to nominate three people to stand as the ANC's candidate for Premier of Limpopo in the 2009 general election;instead,the committee submitted only one name,Mathale's. [4] The provincial party also put Moloto,the incumbent Premier,under significant pressure,exhorting him to reshuffle the provincial executive and appoint Mathale to a senior government position. [8] [9] [10]
Finally,in December 2008,Moloto appointed Mathale as Member of the Executive Council (MEC) for Roads and Transport, [1] after the incumbent,Justice Piitso,resigned. [8] In addition,both as provincial secretary and as provincial chairperson,Mathale was an ex officio member of the ANC National Executive Committee. [1]
In March 2009,Moloto resigned as Premier and defected from the ANC to the Congress of the People,a new pro-Mbeki breakaway party. The Limpopo Executive Council appointed Mathale as acting Premier of Limpopo from 3 to 23 March 2009 [1] while the provincial legislature prepared to select Moloto's successor. [11] Although there was some speculation that Maite Nkoana-Mashabane might be appointed Premier instead of Mathale,he was formally sworn in to the office on 24 March. [12] Pursuant to the general election in May that year,he was elected to a full term as Premier. [1] [13]
He was also re-elected as ANC Provincial Chairperson in December 2011,despite growing opposition to his leadership of the province. Discontent rested partly with the Limpopo provincial branches of the ANC's partners in the Tripartite Alliance,the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) and the South African Communist Party (SACP),which had publicly called for Mathale's resignation,accusing him of presiding over a corrupt administration. [14] At the same time,on some accounts,opposition to Mathale was linked to broader leadership struggles in the national ANC:Mathale remained an ally of Julius Malema,and together the pair were viewed as having turned against Zuma and as agitating for the ANC to depose Zuma at the ANC's 53rd National Conference,scheduled for December 2012. [14] Yet when the Limpopo ANC held its elective conference,Mathale beat his challenger,Joe Phaahla,with 601 votes against Phaahla's 519. [15]
However,Mathale did not complete his full term either as Premier or as ANC Provincial Chairperson. In the weeks before the conference which re-elected Mathale,several newspapers had reported that Mathale's administration faced severe financial shortfalls and that Mathale had requested a R700-million bailout from the National Treasury after commercial banks withdrew their credit lines. [16] In early December 2011,five provincial departments in Mathale's administration,including the provincial treasury under MEC David Masondo,had been placed under administration by the national government. [16] Mathale's supporters later claimed that this move rendered Mathale "a lame duck premier" in subsequent months. [17]
In January 2012,after Mathale's re-election as ANC chair,the full scale of the province's administrative and financial problems emerged. Both the Auditor-General and the national Ministry of Finance reported publicly about the R2-billion budget shortfall faced by the Limpopo government,which they said was caused by a lack of spending restraint,including significant expenditure on contracts marred by procurement irregularities;both appeared to blame the crisis on the province's political leadership. [18] [19] [20] [21] In February,a spokesman for the Hawks said that Mathale,his wife,and Julius Malema were under investigation on allegations of corruption and business irregularities. [21] Other state agencies undertook their own investigations into procurement irregularities. [22] [23] Later in 2012,Mathale's business partner,Selby Manthatha,was charged with corruption,fraud,and money laundering;the National Prosecuting Authority alleged that Manthatha and other members of his family had bribed Malema to obtain government tenders. [24]
In December 2012,the ANC's 53rd National Conference re-elected Jacob Zuma as ANC president. At the conference,Mathale stood unsuccessfully for direct election to the ANC's National Executive Committee. [25] Several months later,allegations of corruption and maladministration in Limpopo continued to receive a great deal of national attention;some members of the ANC in Limpopo also complained that Mathale had sown division in the party. [25] Others,however,suggested that opposition to Mathale was primarily a form of retribution for his opposition to Zuma's re-election. [17] [26]
On 18 March 2013,the ANC National Executive Committee announced that it had dissolved the entire Provincial Executive Committee of the Limpopo ANC,prematurely ending Mathale's term as Provincial Chairperson. Fresh leadership elections would be organised by an interim leadership corps appointed by the national party leadership. ANC Secretary General Gwede Mantashe said that the Mathale-led committee had been dissolved "for displaying totally un-ANC behaviour and institutionalised factional conflict". [27]
In July 2013,the national leadership of the ANC asked Mathale to resign as Premier,"recalling" him from the post in line with the party's cadre deployment policy. [17] [26] In a statement on 15 July,Mathale announced that he had complied with this request and had submitted his resignation letter. In the statement,he insisted that he and his administration had,"contrary to the wrong perception",strongly opposed "all forms of corruption within our jurisdiction". [28] [29] His resignation as Premier was effective from 15 July 2013. [1] The National Education,Health and Allied Workers' Union,a Cosatu affiliate,praised the national ANC for its decision,saying,"Without being triumphalists,our union is happy to see that the ANC has at long last endorsed our view that Mr Mathale was a liability and an embarrassment to our movement and government". [26]
The same day that his resignation as Premier took effect,Mathale was sworn in as a Member of the National Assembly,the lower house of the national Parliament. [30] The Limpopo branch of Cosatu opposed his appointment. [31] Nonetheless,he was elected to a full five-year term in the National Assembly in the 2014 general election and on 25 October 2017 he was appointed chairperson of the Portfolio Committee on Public Service and Administration. [30]
On 26 February 2018,Mathale gave up his committee chairmanship to take office as the Deputy Minister of Small Business Development under Minister Lindiwe Zulu. [30] He was installed in that position in a cabinet reshuffle by President Cyril Ramaphosa,who had recently ascended to the presidency following the resignation of President Jacob Zuma. [32] In the 2019 general election,Mathale was re-elected to the National Assembly and Ramaphosa appointed him Deputy Minister of Police under Minister Bheki Cele. [33]
The National Executive Committee (NEC) of the African National Congress (ANC) is the party's chief executive organ. It is elected every five years at the party national conference; the executive committee, in turn, elects a National Working Committee for day-to-day decision-making responsibilities. At the NEC's head is the president of the ANC, and it also contains the other so-called "Top Six" leaders: the deputy president, chairperson, secretary-general,deputy secretary-general and treasurer-general.
Paul Shipokosa Mashatile is a South African politician who is currently the Deputy President of the governing African National Congress (ANC). Before his election to that position in December 2022, he was ANC Treasurer General from December 2017 and acting ANC Secretary General from January 2022.
Matsie Angelina "Angie" Motshekga is a South African politician and educator, serving as the Minister of Basic Education since May 2009. She was also appointed as an acting president of the Republic of South Africa on 2 July 2021, as President Cyril Ramaphosa attended the state funeral of Kenneth Kaunda in Zambia. She was previously a Member of the Executive Council in the Gauteng provincial government. Motshekga is a member of the African National Congress. She is a former president of the party's women's league.
The 53rd National Conference of the African National Congress (ANC) was held in Mangaung, Free State from 16 to 20 December 2012, during the centenary of the ANC's establishment, also in Mangaung. It re-elected incumbent President Jacob Zuma and his supporters to the party's top leadership and National Executive Committee (NEC), solidly defeating an opposing group that had coalesced around presidential challenger Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe.
David Dabede "DD" Mabuza is a South African politician who has been Deputy President of South Africa since February 2018. He was the Deputy President of the African National Congress (ANC) from December 2017 to December 2022 and was previously the Premier of Mpumalanga from 2009 to 2018, throughout the presidency of his former political ally Jacob Zuma.
George Muthundinne Phadagi, was a member of the African National Congress (ANC),former Member of Parliament, South African struggle stalwart, politician, mayor and former MEC. He served as the first mayor of Thohoyandou from 1994 to 1999, then member of the National Parliament from 2002 to 2008 and towards the end of his life was MEC of Public Works and MEC of Safety Security and Liaison in 2010 to 2011 and was political consultant to then Premier of Limpopo Cassel Mathale at the time of is passing in 2012.
Chupu Stanley Mathabatha is a South African politician who is currently the Premier of Limpopo. He was elected to the position in July 2013 after the resignation of Cassel Mathale. He was previously a public servant in Limpopo province and from 2012 to 2013 completed a brief stint as a diplomat, serving as South African Ambassador to Ukraine under President Jacob Zuma.
General elections were held in South Africa on 8 May 2019 to elect a new President, National Assembly and provincial legislatures in each province. These were the sixth elections held since the end of apartheid in 1994 and determined who would become the next President of South Africa.
Collen Maine is a South African politician who was the president of the African National Congress (ANC) Youth League between 2015 and 2019. He was formerly a Member of the Executive Council and Member of the Provincial Legislature in North West province during the premiership of Thandi Modise and Supra Mahumapelo, and he has served in both houses of the national Parliament of South Africa. In December 2017, he was elected to a five-year term on the ANC's National Executive Committee.
Lubabalo Oscar Mabuyane is a South African politician who has been serving as the seventh Premier of the Eastern Cape since May 2019. He was previously Member of the Executive Council (MEC) for Economic Development, Environmental Affairs and Tourism in the Eastern Cape provincial government from May 2018 to May 2019.
Ronald Ozzy Lamola is a South African lawyer and politician, Minister of Justice and Correctional Services, and a member of the African National Congress (ANC). He has also been serving as a Member of the National Assembly of South Africa since 22 May 2019. He is a member of the ANC's National Executive Committee and National Working Committee. Lamola had previously been involved in the African National Congress Youth League.
Matodzi Mirriam Ramadwa is a South African politician. A member of the African National Congress, she was elected to the Limpopo Provincial Legislature in 2009. In 2013, she was appointed as the Member of the Executive Council (MEC) for Sports, Arts and Culture. Ramada was elected as the speaker of the provincial legislature in 2014. In 2015, she resigned as speaker. Ramadwa was elected to the National Assembly of South Africa in 2019.
Siboniso Armstrong Duma is a South African politician who is the provincial chairperson of the African National Congress (ANC) in KwaZulu-Natal. He is also Member of the Executive Council (MEC) for Economic Development, Tourism and Environmental Affairs in the KwaZulu-Natal government.
The 55th National Conference of the African National Congress (ANC) is taking place from 16 to 20 December 2022 at the Johannesburg Expo Centre in Nasrec, Gauteng. Attended by 4,426 voting delegates, the conference will elect the party's 87-member National Executive Committee, including the party's top officials – for the first time known as the Top Seven, rather than the Top Six, after the conference amended the party's constitution to introduce a second deputy secretary-general position. Delegates will also adopt resolutions on the party's governance and policy positions, with consideration of the outcomes of the ANC's 6th National Policy Conference, held in late July 2022.
The Provincial Executive Committees (PEC) of the African National Congress (ANC) are the chief executive organs of the party's nine provincial branches. Comprising the so-called Top Five provincial officials and up to 30 additional elected members, each is structured similarly to the ANC's National Executive Committee and is elected every four years at party provincial conferences.
Chritian Nkakareng Rakgoale is a South African politician. As of June 2022, she has been the Member of the Executive Council (MEC) for Public Works, Roads and Infrastructure in the Limpopo provincial government. She previously served as the MEC for Social Development from May 2019 to June 2022. Rakgoale was elected to the Limpopo Provincial Legislature in May 2019. Before that, she served as the Executive Mayor of the Mopani District Municipality. Rakgoale is a member of the African National Congress.
Tshenuwani Simon Farisani is a South African politician, theologian, and Lutheran minister. During apartheid, he was one of the country's most prominent black clergymen and preached anti-apartheid liberation theology from his diocese in Venda and Transvaal. He founded the Black Evangelic Youth Organisation with Cyril Ramaphosa in the early 1970s and was also active in the Black Consciousness movement, especially as president of the Black People's Convention from 1973 to 1975. He was arrested on four occasions, according to Amnesty International as a prisoner of conscience, and he testified abroad about the torture he was subjected to by the apartheid police.
Fulufhelo Florence Radzilani is a South African politician who is currently serving as Member of the Executive Council (MEC) for Transport and Community Safety in Limpopo province. She was formerly the executive mayor of Vhembe District Municipality from 2011 to 2012 and from 2016 to 2018. She resigned as mayor in December 2018 after being implicated in the corruption scandal at VBS Mutual Bank.
Happy Joyce Mashamba was a South African politician and veteran of the African National Congress (ANC). At the time of her death, she was Member of the Executive Council (MEC) for Agriculture and Rural Development in the provincial government of Limpopo. She was also a member of the Central Committee of the South African Communist Party and a former member of the ANC National Executive Committee and the ANC Women's League National Executive Committee.
Namane Dickson Masemola is a South African politician who has been a Delegate to the National Council of Provinces since October 2022. Between 2009 and 2022, he was a Member of the Provincial Legislature in the Limpopo provincial government, representing the African National Congress (ANC), and held a variety of positions in the Limpopo Executive Council.
