15 Things you don’t know about Kgalema Motlanthe

1.  Full name Kgalema Petrus Motlanthe

2.  Born on 19 July 1949 at the Boksburg-Benoni Hospital. He grew up in Alexandra, Johannesburg, Gauteng

3.   Kgalema  Motlanthe’s parents, Louis Mathakoe Motlanthe, a cleaner and Masefako Sophia Madingoane, a domestic worker married in 1946. Motlanthe (also known as Mkhuluwa, the elder one) has two younger brothers, Tlatlane Ernest and Lekota Sydney

4.  Kgalema Motlanthe’s parents were practising Christians, which influenced his outlook on life. He served as an altar boy and at one point intended to enter the Anglican priesthood

5.  In 1964, the Anglican Church awarded him a bursary to attend St Christopher’s in Swaziland to complete his secondary schooling and then enter the priesthood. His application for travel documents to the Bantu Affairs Department was turned down and they informed him that he had to study in South Africa.

6.   Kgalema Motlanthe political interest was aroused after reading the Anglican priest, Father Trevor Huddleston’s book, Naught for Your Comfort. The American Black Panther Movement and the rising Black Consciousness Movement in South Africa also played a role in shaping his political awareness.

7.  I n 1975, he married Mapula Mokate, from Sophiatown. Mokate was a radiographer at Baragwanath Hospital, Soweto. The couple have two children, Kagiso and Kgomotso.

8.   In the 1970s, while working for the Johannesburg City Council, he was recruited into Umkhonto we Sizwe, the military wing of the ANC. He formed part of a unit tasked with recruiting comrades for military training. On 14 April 1976, he was arrested for furthering the aims of the ANC and was kept in detention for 11 months at John Vorster Square in central Johannesburg. In 1977 he was found guilty of three charges under the Terrorism Act and sentenced to an effective 10 years imprisonment on Robben Island, from 1977 to 1987

9.   Shortly after his release he was elected Secretary-General of the National Union of Mineworkers. In January 1992 the Central Executive Committee elected him acting general secretary in January over Marcel Golding, and in 1997 he was elected Secretary-General of the ANC, replacing Cyril Ramaphosa.

10.  Kgalema Motlanthe was elected the Secretary General (SG) of the ANC at its Mafikeng Conference in December 1997 with Thabo Mbeki as its President. He was responsible for ensuring that the ANC implemented and carried out its policies and programmes

11.   Kgalema Motlanthe was elected Deputy President of the African National Congress at the party’s 52nd National Conference in Polokwane in December 2007, defeating the Mbeki camp’s choice of Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma

12.   Kgalema Motlanthe became a member of parliament in May 2008 and in July was appointed to the cabinet by Mbeki as Minister without Portfolio. This was seen as a step towards a smooth transition to a future Zuma government

13.  Kgalema Motlanthe is a South African politician who served as President of South Africa between 25 September 2008 and 9 May 2009, following the resignation of Thabo Mbeki

14.   Kgalema Motlanthe has expressed his desire to address AIDS in South Africa using conventional scientific approaches. He appointed Barbara Hogan to replace Mbeki’s health minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, who had denounced anti-retroviral drugs as poisons and advised the use of olive oil, garlic, and beetroot by HIV-positive persons

15.   Kgalema Motlanthe was nominated for the positions of President, Deputy President and NEC member of the ANC at its national elective conference in December 2012, at Mangaung, Free State. Media reports stated that Motlanthe would be standing for election at the conference. Motlanthe ran for the position of President of the ANC at the party’s 53rd conference, against incumbent President Jacob Zuma