Kgalema Motlanthe

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Motlanthe in June 2009

Kgalema Petrus Motlanthe (born July 19, 1949 in Johannesburg ) is a South African politician . He was President of the country from September 25, 2008 to May 9, 2009 and then Vice President under Jacob Zuma until 2014 .

biography

youth

The son of a laundress and an office messenger was born in 1949. He grew up as the youngest of 13 children. The family moved from Alexandra , a township on the outskirts of Johannesburg, to Meadowlands, a borough of Soweto , where he started school. In his childhood he was an altar boy in an Anglican parish . Motlanthe finished school at Orlando High School in Soweto. He then took up a job as the municipal supervisor of district sales outlets for the Johannesburg city administration, which he held for seven years. During this time he was also active as an active football player.

Early politicization

The youthful Motlanthe was a supporter of the civil rights activist Steve Biko (1946–1977), founder of the Black Consciousness movement at the time of the South African apartheid regime . In 1976 he was imprisoned for eleven months because of his involvement in the banned organizations African National Congress (ANC) and MK .

Political career

One year after the uprising in Soweto , the 28-year-old was sentenced to ten years in prison under the Terrorism Act . He spent this until 1987 on the prison island Robben Island off Cape Town , where Nelson Mandela was also imprisoned. During his detention, the anti-apartheid fighter Walter Sisulu took on Motlanthes and became his political teacher. Motlanthe, who completed a distance learning course at the University of South Africa , worked after his imprisonment as a manager and from 1992 as Secretary General for the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), as well as active as a trade unionist in the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu), where in 1987 he was a member of the trade union committee of the great strike. At the same time, he advanced his political career at the ANC. In the early 1990s, he was the ANC chairman in his home region. In 1997 he was elected to succeed the outgoing ANC General Secretary Cyril Ramaphosa . He held this office until 2007.

In December 2007 Motlanthe decided the duel for the deputy party chairmanship. He was able to prevail against the Foreign Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma , although according to his own statements he would have liked to take a position on the organizing committee for the 2010 soccer World Cup in his own country.

Government offices

At the request of the camp around the ANC chairman Jacob Zuma, Motlanthe was appointed to the cabinet of President Thabo Mbeki as a minister without a portfolio in July 2008 . After an intra-party power struggle between Mbeki and Zuma, he announced his resignation as president at the end of September 2008 and Motlanthe was surprisingly proposed by Zuma as transitional president until the planned presidential elections in May 2009. Previously, Baleka Mbete , Speaker of the National Assembly at the time , was the favorite for the post. Motlanthe himself had always rejected speculation about the top political position in South Africa.

President of the Republic of South Africa

After the official resignation of Mbeki and eleven ministers on September 25, 2008, he was sworn in as the new President of the Republic of South Africa on the same day, making him the third incumbent since democracy began in South Africa. The presidential candidate-designate Zuma could not take over the office at the time because he did not have a mandate. After the parliamentary elections in April 2009 Motlanthe became Vice President of South Africa under his successor Zuma. At the same time he was vice chairman of the ANC. On December 18, 2012, he ran against Zuma for the office of ANC party chairman, but received only around a quarter of the delegate votes. On the same day, Cyril Ramaphosa was elected to replace Motlanthes as ANC vice president. At the parliamentary elections in 2014 , he has not raced for more. Ramaphosa also succeeded him in the office of South African Vice President in May 2014.

Private and personal positions

Kgalema Motlanthe lives in Midrand , in the Gauteng Province . He is married and has two daughters and a son. Motlanthe, referred to by family and friends as Mkhuluwa (German: "the elder"), was politically treated as a man of compromise, who is said to have high organizational skills and talent as an arbitrator. At the same time, the politician was seen as a possible competitor of Jacob Zuma, who is sometimes seen as a populist by the white minority in the country and foreign investors. Motlanthe, who in the past in a scandal involving an oil-for-food program the United Nations has been involved, had also spoken publicly of it, more white members of the state administration to recruit want.

Web links

Commons : Kgalema Motlanthe  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ cf. Plantive, Charlotte: South Africa's new president . Agence France-Presse , September 25, 2008, Johannesburg 12:51 PM GMT
  2. ^ Page of the Vice President , accessed on November 11, 2011. According to other information, including in South Africa History Online , Motlanthe was born in Bela-Bela in the Transvaal Province .
  3. ↑ a b c d cf. Portrait Kgalema Motlanthe ANC Vice . In: Der Tagesspiegel , September 23, 2008, edition 20034, p. 6.
  4. ↑ a b c d cf. Forde, Fiona: For now 'Mkhuluwa' is our man . In: Pretoria News, September 23, 2008, e2 Edition, p. 2
  5. ↑ a b Interview of July 14, 1992 with Motlanthe. on www.nelsonmandela.org (English)
  6. ↑ biography on www.sahistory.org.za (English)
  7. ↑ a b cf. Plantive, Charlotte: Bafana-fanatic Motlanthe can be ANC's great bridge-builder . Agence France-Presse on September 22, 2008 6:34 PM GMT
  8. ↑ cf. South African Government Information ( Memento of December 7, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) at www.info.gov.za, (archive version)
  9. ↑ cf. Entry ( memento from January 12, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) in Who's Who of Southern Africa (English; accessed January 12, 2016)
  10. ↑ a b cf. Motlanthe is to be Mbeki's successor at dw-world.de, September 22, 2008 (accessed on September 24, 2008)
  11. ↑ cf. Martina Schwikowski: The ANC plunges South Africa into deep crisis . In: the daily newspaper , September 24, 2008, p. 11
  12. ↑ cf. Karl-Ludwig Günsch: The ANC dug its own grave at Spiegel Online, September 25, 2008 (accessed on September 25, 2008)
  13. ↑ cf. A bridge builder as President of South Africa ( Memento from November 5, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) at tagesschau.de, September 25, 2008 (accessed on August 25, 2008)
  14. ↑ cf. Wolfgang Drechsler: South Africa's government in turmoil . In: Tagesspiegel, September 24, 2008, edition 20035, p. 5
  15. ^ President Zuma re-elected as ANC chief. Spiegel Online , accessed December 18, 2012
  16. ↑ Zuma remains ANC chairman. faz-net , accessed December 18, 2012
  17. ↑ Good-byes Manuel, Motlanthe, Gordhan. ( Memento from June 20, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) at citypress.co.za (English), accessed on May 22, 2014
personal data
SURNAME Motlanthe, Kgalema
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Motlanthe, Kgalema Petrus
BRIEF DESCRIPTION South African politician, Vice President of South Africa
DATE OF BIRTH July 19, 1949
PLACE OF BIRTH Johannesburg