Kgalema Motlanthe

Trivia

• In the early 1970’s Motlanthe was employed by the Johannesburg City Council and it was during this period that he was recruited into the ANC underground.
• His unity was made up of amongst others, Stan Nkosi and it set about recruiting people to be sent for military training.
• On 14th April 1976 a few months before the Soweto uprising Stan Nkosi and Motlanthe were arrested and held for 11 months in solitary at John Vorster Square before being charged in 1977 under the Terrorism Act.
• They were sentenced to three counts under the Terrorism Act and sentenced to effective 10 years which he served in the medium section on Robben Island from 1977 to 1987.
• On his release from prison he found employment in the powerful National Union of Mineworkers and was not long afterwards found himself chairing the 1987 mine workers “Great Strike” committee.
• Motlanthe was elected general secretary of the National Union of Mineworkers when its general secretary Cyril Ramaphosa was elected general secretary of the ANC in 1991.
• In 1997 he was elected Secretary-General of the ANC, when Cyril Ramaphosa resigned after differences with Mbeki and went into business.
• In 2002 he was re-elected General Secretary of the ANC and remain there until he was elected deputy President after beating Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma with 2 346 votes compared to her 1 444 at the historic Polokwene conference.
• In July 2008 Motlanthe was appointed to Parliament as a minister without portfolio in the Presidency and on 25th September 2008 he was elected as President of South African after Thabo Mbeki was removed from office by the ANC.

Quotes

• “The JZ issue has not affected our preparations. All we are doing now is just oiling the party machinery [in preparation for the elections].”
• “Only the (party's) national conference can remove him from that office. The effect of that suspension means that he will not pronounce or act as deputy president for the duration of the trial.”