Mbhazima Shilowa | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Member of the National Assembly | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| In office 6 May 2009 – 9 February 2011 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 3rdPremier of Gauteng | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| In office 15 June 1999 – 29 September 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Preceded by | Mathole Motshekga | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Succeeded by | Paul Mashatile | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| General Secretary of the Congress of South African Trade Unions | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| In office September 1993 – June 1999 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Deputy | Zwelinzima Vavi | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Preceded by | Jay Naidoo | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Succeeded by | Zwelinzima Vavi | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Personal details | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Born | Mbhazima Samuel Shilowa (1958-04-30)30 April 1958 (age 67) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Political party | Congress of the People (2008–2014) African National Congress (1990–2008) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Other political affiliations | South African Communist Party | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Spouse | Wendy Luhabe | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Nickname | Sam | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
Mbhazima Samuel Shilowa (born 30 April 1958) is a retired South African politician and formertrade unionist. He was the thirdPremier of Gauteng between 1999 and 2008. He was formerly the general secretary of theCongress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) between 1993 and 1999, and he later became a co-founder of theCongress of the People (Cope).
Born in the ruralNorthern Province, Shilowa became active in thetrade union movement as ashop steward inJohannesburg in 1981. He rose through the ranks of theTransport and General Workers' Union before becoming Cosatu's deputy general secretary in 1991 and its general secretary in 1993. During this period he was also active inanti-apartheid politics, including as a member of Cosatu'sTripartite Alliance partners: he joined theCentral Committee of theSouth African Communist Party in 1991 and joined theNational Executive Committee of theAfrican National Congress (ANC) in 1994.
After theJune 1999 general election, Shilowa resigned as Cosatu general secretary to represent the ANC as Premier of Gauteng. The flagship policies of his administration included the construction of theGautrain. Although he was re-elected to a second term as premier in theApril 2004 general election, he resigned from the office on 29 September 2008; a political ally and personal friend ofThabo Mbeki, he resigned in protest of the ANC's decision to recall Mbeki from the national presidency.
In October 2008, he resigned his ANC membership to co-found an ANC breakaway party, COPE, withMosiuoa Lekota. He became COPE's inaugural deputy president and, after theApril 2009 general election, itschief whip in theNational Assembly of South Africa. However, within 18 months, COPE was divided by an ongoing leadership contest between Lekota and Shilowa, who claimed to have been elected as COPE's new president by an abortive party conference in December 2010. The Lekota-led faction expelled Shilowa from the party in February 2011.
Shilowa was born on 30 April 1958 atOlifantshoek, a village in the formerNorthern Province (nowLimpopo).[1] He was the youngest of seven children and one of only three who survived past infancy.[2] After taking several years off school because of his family's poverty, Shilowa attended Akani High School inHlanganani,[3] but in 1978,[4] he dropped out at standard nine after an altercation with one of his teachers.[5] In 1979 he moved toJohannesburg to find employment; living in thetownship ofDobsonville, he worked at a hardware store inGermiston, did clerical and laboratory work at Anglo-Alpha Cement inRoodepoort, and then worked as a trainer for PSG Services in the city.[1][5]
Shilowa became involved in thetrade union movement in 1981 when he was elected asshop steward at his workplace at Anglo-Alpha Cement; he later held the same position at PSG Services.[1] Over the next decade, he rose rapidly in the movement's ranks, becoming deputy chairperson of theWitwatersrand hub of theCongress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu). In 1991 he was elected as Cosatu's deputy general secretary, deputising general secretaryJay Naidoo.[3] He also served as vice-president and then briefly as president of theTransport and General Workers' Union, a founding affiliate of Cosatu.[3][5]
Meanwhile, through Cosatu, Shilowa was active in theanti-apartheid movement'sMass Democratic Movement.[5] After theAfrican National Congress (ANC) andSouth African Communist Party (SACP) were unbanned in 1990, he was elected to the interim leadership corps that oversaw the parties' organisational revival in Gauteng.[3] In 1991 he was elected to theCentral Committee of the SACP for the first time.[3] The following year, during thenegotiations to end apartheid, he was a member of the ANC's negotiating team at theConvention for a Democratic South Africa (CODESA), and he was later a delegate to theMulti-Party Negotiating Forum.[3]
Shilowa was elected to succeed Naidoo as Cosatu general secretary at a special union congress in 1993, and he held that position for the next six years, gaining re-election in 1994 and 1997.[6][7] According toMark Gevisser, he attained the position largely due to his prominence in theGauteng structures of the SACP.[5]
Under Shilowa, Cosatu became a key campaigning vehicle for the ANC ahead of thefirst post-apartheid elections in April 1994, under the auspices of theTripartite Alliance, and its close relationship to the party persisted when the party entered government.[8] Shilowa was closely involved in the establishment of theNational Economic Development and Labour Council (Nedlac).[9] He was also a close personal friend and informal adviser to Deputy PresidentThabo Mbeki,[10] and, writing in 1996, Gevisser argued that his political talent and political experience were among his greatest strengths as Cosatu leader, though they also made him an object of some suspicion among hardline unionists.[5] He was viewed as "uncomfortable with Cosatu's hardline anti-privatisation position".[5]
During his tenure as Cosatu general secretary, Shilowa was twice a member of theNational Executive Committee of the ANC. He was first elected to the organ at the ANC's49th National Conference in December 1994,[11] though he resigned before the committee completed its three-year term.[12] At the party's next elective conference, the50th National Conference inMafikeng in December 1997, he was elected to return to a five-year term on the committee,[13] which he served in full.[14] Controversially, the committee appointed Shilowa to serve on an internal task team charged with investigating the actions of the SACP'sleft wing during the ANC's 50th Conference.[15]
On 23 April 1999, the ANC announced that Shilowa would stand inthe upcoming general election as the party's candidate for election asPremier of Gauteng.[1] The announcement followed prolonged speculation that Shilowa would leave the trade union movement for a senior government position,[16] though he had been expected to join thenational cabinet asMinister of Labour.[17] His premiership campaign also marked his personal rebranding as Mbhazima Shilowa; formerly known in the trade union movement as Sam, he said that he had never liked his Christian name.[18]
He resigned as COSATU secretary-general soon after the 2 June election, when it became clear that the ANC had won a comfortable majority in theGauteng Provincial Legislature, and he was formally elected as premier, unopposed, on 15 June 1999.[19] He was re-elected to a second term as premier after theApril 2004 general election.[20][21]
One of Shilowa's first acts as premier in 1999 was a slate of controversial appointments to theGauteng Executive Council; his critics accused him of fuellingfactionalism in the provincial ANC by sidelining supporters of his predecessor,Mathole Motshekga, and by appointing Motshekga's rivalAmos Masondo as his political adviser.[22][23] However, over the next nine years, he generally suppressed factional conflict in the provincial party.[24] He became a moderately popular premier; at the conclusion of his term, the oppositionDemocratic Alliance complimented hiseconomic policies, but critics accused him of failing to combatcorruption and service delivery failures.[25]
The best-known initiative of his administration was theGautrain express rail system, long nicknamed the Shilowa Express, which he announced during his first term as premier.[26][27] After significant delays,[28][29] a construction contract for the railway was signed in 2006.[30] Shilowa's administration was also an early adopter of a progressiveHIV/AIDS policy; his government announced the rollout of amother-to-child transmission prevention programme in 2001 and the general rollout of ananti-retroviral treatment programme in 2004, while the policies were still unpopular in the national government.[31][32]
At a party elective conference in November 2001, Shilowa was elected unopposed asprovincial chairperson of the Gauteng ANC.[33] He succeeded former premier Motshekga, whose leadership corps had been disbanded in 2000,[34] and he was viewed as the preferred candidate of the incumbent national leadership of the party.[35] At the same elective conference,David Makhura was elected provincial secretary andAngie Motshekga was elected as deputy provincial chairperson.[33] Shilowa and the others served two terms in the party leadership, gaining re-election comfortably in December 2004.[36]
At the conclusion of his second term as provincial chairperson in October 2007, Shilowa declined a nomination to stand for a third; instead, he reportedly supportedPaul Mashatile's successful bid to succeed him.[37][38] The elective conference elected Shilowa as an ordinary member of the ANC'sProvincial Executive Committee.[39]
Ahead of the ANC's52nd National Conference in 2007, as Mbeki approached the end of his second term as ANC president and national president, Shilowa was reportedly a key backer of the resistance againstJacob Zuma's presidential campaign. TheMail & Guardian reported that he might himself stand for the deputy presidency on an anti-Zuma slate led byTokyo Sexwale.[40][41] After Sexwale's campaign failed, he supported Mbeki's bid for election to a third term.[42] However, when the conference was held inPolokwane in December 2007, Zuma won the presidency.
In the aftermath of Mbeki's defeat, Shilowa himself withdrew from contention for election to the ANC's National Executive Committee. He initially told press that if he was not elected "I won't feel disheartened. At least I took a stand."[42] However, shortly before the vote, he withdrew his candidacy, explaining, "I decided that this is an NEC that I don't want to be part of."[43]
As the Zuma-led ANC moved against Mbeki in 2008, Shilowa was among those who defended Mbeki publicly; in September 2008, he warned that it would be ill-advised toimpeach Mbeki because, "There may be people who'll say we might as well leave with him."[44] Nonetheless, on 29 September 2008, under pressure from the ANC leadership, Mbeki resigned from the national presidency. Later the same day, Shilowa announced his own resignation as Premier of Gauteng in protest of the party's treatment of Mbeki. He explained:
I am resigning due to my convictions that while the African National Congress has the right to recall any of its deployed cadres, the decision needs to be based on solid facts, be fair and just. I also did not feel that I will be able to, with conviction, publicly explain or defend the national executive committee’s decision on comrade Thabo Mbeki... It is a known fact that I hold strong views on the manner of his dismissal, and to pretend otherwise would be disingenuous. I acknowledge and respect the ANC’s rights to recall any of its deployed cadres. I am, however, of the view that there was no cogent reason for doing so.[45]
He later said that Mbeki's ouster had been "the straw that broke the camel's back", compounding his pre-existing concerns about the contemporary ANC's approach to "honesty, integrity, solidarity, humaneness and therule of law".[9] Mashatile was elected to succeed him as premier.[46]
Meanwhile, Shilowa was immediately linked to a rumored breakaway initiative in the ANC, associated with national ministerMosiuoa Lekota.[47] On 15 October 2008, he held a press conference inJohannesburg at which he announced that he had resigned from the ANC to work full-time as the "convenor and volunteer-in-chief" of Lekota's initiative.[48][49] He later said that he had approached Lekota after hearing him criticize the ANC in a radio interview.[50] While COSATU condemned his decision,[51] ANC spokeswomanJessie Duarte said, "We knew he was going to do that."[52]
In the remainder of 2008, Shilowa and Lekota, known to the press by the portmanteau Shikota, spearheaded the launch of a new political party peopled by Mbeki's supporters in the ANC. Shilowa formally announced their plans to establish a political party on 1 November 2008, at a national convention inSandton,[53][54] and the following week he announced that the party would be registered as theCongress of the People (COPE).[55][56]
Though he was named as the party's interim deputy chairperson,[57] Shilowa quickly eclipsed Lekota andMluleki George as the face of the new party, leading to rumors that he might become its leader.[58] However, when COPE held its inaugural national congress inBloemfontein in December 2008, the leadership was elected by "consensus" rather than vote, and Shilowa became the party's deputy president, under Lekota as party president.[59][60] He was officially the party's first deputy president, with businesswomanLynda Odendaal named as second deputy president.[60]
COPE contested theApril 2009 general election withMvume Dandala as its presidential candidate. Although Shilowa denied rumors that he and Lekota competed bitterly for the presidential candidate slot,[61] theMail & Guardian reported that his supporters were key in driving the eventual selection of Dandala over Lekota.[62] Pursuant to the election, Lekota was elected to a seat in theNational Assembly, the lower house of theSouth African Parliament, and he was named as the party'schief whip. He said that COPE would seek to become a "patriotic opposition party that would raise issues with the ruling party in a mature and fair manner".[63]
During its first year in Parliament, COPE was severely undermined by factional leadership battles, as Shilowa's supporters campaigned for him to replace Lekota as COPE president.[64][65] Internal divisions were visible by the end of 2009,[66] and the party's national congress inCenturion in May 2010 collapsed after Shilowa-aligned delegates purported to pass amotion of no-confidence in Lekota.[67] In October 2010, Lekota's camp resolved to suspend Shilowa from his position as COPE chief whip and accounting officer, alleging that he had been implicated in financial mismanagement.[68][69] However, his suspension was declared invalid by theWestern Cape High Court, which said that he had unlawfully been denied theright to respond to the charges against him.[70][71] After the court ruling, Lekota denied that Shilowa had been removed at all, saying that he had merely been relieved of his financial responsibilities.[70]
In December 2010, another COPE national congress devolved into chaos; Shilowa declared that the congress had elected him to succeed Lekota as party president, but Lekota strongly disagreed.[72] Over the next few months, both Lekota and Shilowa claimed simultaneously to lead COPE.[73][74] In January 2011, Lekota's camp purported to suspend Shilowa, and several of his closest allies, from membership in COPE.[75] Shilowa was subsequently subjected to an internal disciplinary hearing, which concluded in February 2011 with his putative expulsion from the party; the disciplinary panel – constituted by Lekota's supporters – found that he had seriously mismanaged the finances of COPE's parliamentary caucus. Shilowa, who had refused to participate in the disciplinary process, denied the allegations.[76][77]
Pursuant to the putative expulsion, Lekota's faction notified theSpeaker of the National Assembly that Shilowa was no longer authorized to represent the party in Parliament,[78] but SpeakerMax Sisulu did not accept the notification, saying that he could not adjudicate COPE's internal leadership controversies.[79] Later the same week, Lekota obtained an interim court order interdicting Shilowa from attending Parliament or claiming to lead COPE while a court heard a pending lawsuit between the two factions.[80] In the interim, Shilowa and his supporters boycotted COPE's campaign in theMay 2011 local elections.[81][82] The lawsuit finally concluded in October 2013, when theJohannesburg High Court upheld Lekota's claim to the COPE leadership, ruling that the December 2010 congress had been inquorate and therefore was incompetent to elect Shilowa as president.[83]
In January 2014, COPE held its next national congress, defeating another lawsuit by Shilowa supporters who sought to interdict the congress;Willie Madisha was elected to replace Shilowa as Lekota's deputy.[84] Ahead of theMay 2014 general election, Shilowa announced publicly that he would support the campaign of theUnited Democratic Movement (UDM), another ANC breakaway party, though he did not himself officially join the UDM.[85]
After losing the battle to lead COPE, Shilowa retreated from active politics, though he remains prominent as a political commentator andNews24 columnist. In 2024 he described himself as "a man of leisure".[86] He also has a wine company, Epicurean, which he founded in 2003 with businessmen Mutle Mogase,Moss Ngoasheng, and Ron Gault;[87][88] the company specializes inred wines, which it produces at Johann Rupert's Rupert & Rothschild cellars inPaarl.[89][90]
He is married to businesswomanWendy Luhabe,[91] who was one of COPE's early financiers and fundraisers.[92] In addition to his children with Luhabe, Shilowa reportedly has two sons from a former customary marriage to Caroline Rikhotso;[93] the youngest sued successfully forchild support in 2007.[94]
| Political offices | ||
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| Preceded by | Premier of Gauteng 15 June 1999 – 29 September 2008 | Succeeded by |