Mosiuoa Lekota

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Mosiuoa Lekota (2000)

Mosiuoa Gerard Patrick Lekota (born August 13, 1948 in Kroonstad ) is a South African politician. He is chairman of the Congress of the People (COPE) party. He was a member of the African National Congress (ANC) until October 2008 and was an ANC member from 1994 to 1996 Prime Minister of the Free State Province and from 1999 to 2008 South African Defense Minister.

In his youth, Lekota was nicknamed "Terror", which refers to his style on the football field.

As a child, Lekota attended a farm school, to which he had to walk a long distance every day. He later went to a Catholic mission school in Matatiele , which he graduated with Standard 8. 1968 began his last school career at St Francis College in Mariannhill near Pinetown , where he took his matric in 1969. During this time Lekota met Steve Biko , who worked here as a tutor for the students. This had a great influence on the development of his political views. Since 1970 Lekota was employed as a part-time teacher in the college. A little later, he signed up for a law degree at the University of the North (Turfloop). With an interruption due to lack of money, he continued studying in 1972, but with the aim of obtaining a social science degree.

Because of his activities for the ANC and the Student Representative Council (SRC), he was expelled from the university in 1972 during a student boycott. Lekota is married and has three children with his wife, Cynthia, and one child with Yasmina Pandy, former CapeNature Vice-Chair.

Political career

In 1974 he succeeded Abram Onkgopotse Tiro as coordinator of the South African Students' Organization (SASO), but was arrested in the same year as a member of the SASO Nine and charged with conspiracy. He had organized victory celebrations for the Mozambican independence movement Frelimo . After a 17 month trial, he was sentenced to a long prison term and detained on Robben Island . In 1982 he was released. In 1983 Lekota was elected spokesman for the newly founded anti- apartheid movement United Democratic Front . He was arrested again in 1985 and later sentenced to twelve years in prison in the Delmas Treason Trial , but the sentence was overturned on appeal in 1989.

In 1990 Lekota was elected Chairman of the ANC in South Natal and shortly thereafter also to the ANC National Executive Committee . The following year he was named the ANC Intelligence Overseer and Chairman of the ANC Electoral Commission. After the first free elections in 1994 Lekota was able to conquer the office of Prime Minister of the Province of Free State, which he held from May 11, 1994 to December 18, 1996. Subsequently, Lekota held the office of chairman in the National Council of Provinces from 1997 until he was appointed South African Minister of Defense in 1999. After the resignation of President Thabo Mbeki in September 2008, Lekota and ten other ministers also submitted his resignation.

On October 8, 2008, Lekota announced that he would convene a national assembly to discuss the formation of a new party. He was then expelled from the ANC on October 14, 2008. At the founding meeting of the Congress of the People (COPE) party in Bloemfontein on December 16, 2008, around 4,000 delegates elected Mosiuoa Lekota as party chairman. Official registration as a party and recognition as such by the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) took place on December 19, 2008.

After the parliamentary elections in South Africa in 2009 , in which the COPE received 30 seats in the National Assembly , Lekota did not take over a mandate, but continued to concentrate on building the party. In 2010, a power struggle for leadership of the party developed between Lekota and his deputy Mbhazima Shilowa . On May 29, 2010, the delegates of a party congress spoke out in a vote of no confidence against Lekota as chairman. A week later, the Johannesburg Supreme Court annulled this vote due to procedural errors. After Mvume Dandala resigned from the group chairmanship on July 15, 2010 and resigned his mandate, Lekota returned to parliament and also took over the group chairmanship. In 2014 and 2019 he was re-elected to the National Assembly, but the COPE only received three and two seats respectively.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Sahistory.org.za zu Lekota , (English), accessed on April 12, 2010.
  2. ↑ Shelag Gastrow: Who's Who in South African Politics. Number 5, Johannesburg 1995, p. 117.
  3. ↑ Clerics lash Zuma, now unmasked Lekota. In: The Star . Online article from February 13, 2010.
  4. ↑ a b Angry Lekota speaks his mind. In: Independent Online, online article. November 9, 2008, accessed January 6, 2013 .
  5. ↑ Mosiuoa Patrick "Terror" Lekota. South African History Online , accessed September 28, 2019
  6. ^ CNN article on the resignation of September 23, 2008 ( Memento of March 7, 2012 in the Internet Archive ). (English)
  7. ^ Lekota suspended from ANC. In: RTHK. Online article from October 14, 2008. (English)
  8. ^ Cope officially registered as a political party. In: Mail & Guardian . Online article from December 19, 2008.
  9. ↑ Lekota staying out of Parliament. In: Pretoria News. May 5, 2009.
  10. ^ Court says Lekota still Cope president. In: Mail & Guardian. June 6, 2010.
  11. ^ Cope's Lekota heads back to Parliament. In: Mail & Guardian. August 18, 2010.
personal data
SURNAME Lekota, Mosiuoa
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Lekota, Mosiuoa Gerard Patrick; Lekota, terror
BRIEF DESCRIPTION South African politician
DATE OF BIRTH August 13, 1948
PLACE OF BIRTH Kroonstad