52 Facts About Dali Mpofu

Daluxolo Christopher Mpofu was born on 17 January 1962 and is a South African lawyer, politician, and former businessman who was the National Chairperson of the Economic Freedom Fighters from 2014 to 2019.

Dali Mpofu served on the Judicial Service Commission from 2017 to 2022 and formerly served as chief executive officer of the South African Broadcasting Corporation from 2005 to 2009.

Dali Mpofu was admitted as an advocate of the High Court in 1993 and was awarded senior counsel status in 2014.

Dali Mpofu is known for taking on politically sensitive cases: among other clients, he has represented striking mineworkers at the Marikana Commission, Tom Moyane at the Zondo Commission, and Busisiwe Mkhwebane at the Section 194 Enquiry; since 2021, he has been lead counsel for former President Jacob Zuma in his corruption trial.

Formerly a longstanding member of the African National Congress, Dali Mpofu defected to the EFF in 2013.

Dali Mpofu was born in 1962 in Duncan Village outside East London in the former Cape Province.

In 1987, Dali Mpofu worked in Kathleen Satchwell's attorney offices, and he completed his BProc at Wits in 1988.

Dali Mpofu worked for a year in the Social Welfare Department of the ANC, which was unbanned by the apartheid government in 1990.

Dali Mpofu instituted wrongful dismissal charges against the ANC; both he and Madikizela-Mandela denied the affair and fraud allegations.

Also in 1992, Dali Mpofu completed an LLB at Wits, and the following year he was admitted as an advocate of the High Court of South Africa and as a member of the Johannesburg Bar.

Dali Mpofu practiced law at the Department of Justice and, from 1996 to 1997, as a trainee international advocacy teacher at Gray's Inn in London.

Dali Mpofu acquired a number of business interests during that period, including through black economic empowerment deals.

In June 2005, Dali Mpofu was appointed chief executive officer of the South African Broadcasting Corporation, South Africa's public broadcaster.

Early in his tenure at the SABC, in September 2007, Dali Mpofu controversially announced that the SABC would sever ties with the South African National Editors' Forum over the forum's response to a series of critical reports about Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang.

However, the bulk of Dali Mpofu's tenure was dominated by his battles with the SABC board and with Snuki Zikalala, the SABC's head of news and current affairs.

Dali Mpofu's term coincided with the prologue to and aftermath of the ANC's 52nd National Conference, which removed President Thabo Mbeki from the ANC presidency and replaced him with Jacob Zuma.

The next day, the SABC board announced that it viewed Zikalala's suspension as invalid and that it had, in turn, suspended Dali Mpofu pending the outcome of a disciplinary inquiry.

Dali Mpofu said that he had suspended Zikalala for leaking SABC documents to other media houses, but media reports suggested that Dali Mpofu had attempted to suspend Zikalala precisely because he suspected that the board intended to suspend him and appoint Zikalala in his place.

Less than a fortnight later, the Johannesburg High Court set aside Dali Mpofu's suspension, ruling that the board's decision was invalid because Dali Mpofu had been deliberately excluded from participating in the meeting where the decision was taken.

Dali Mpofu said that the charges were "kind of rubbish, really".

Dali Mpofu initially challenged his dismissal in the Labour Court, but in August 2009, he agreed to withdraw all legal action in exchange for an exit package of R14.1 million.

Amid reports that the SABC was in serious financial trouble, Dali Mpofu said that he took "full responsibility for all the decisions I made" at the SABC but argued that he had not really worked at the SABC since March 2008, when his difficulties with the board had begun to predominate.

Dali Mpofu was replaced at the SABC by Solly Mokoetle and joked that, after his dismissal, he intended to become a "full-time house husband".

Dali Mpofu represented the mineworkers at the Marikana Commission of Inquiry, which ran from 2012 to 2014 under the chairmanship of Ian Farlam.

Towards the end of the Marikana Commission hearings, in August 2014, the media reported that Dali Mpofu had applied for senior counsel status in the High Court in 2012 but that President Jacob Zuma had not yet approved the award.

Dali Mpofu represented Tom Moyane, the suspended Commissioner of the South African Revenue Service, at the Nugent Commission, which was held in 2018 to investigate allegations of maladministration at SARS during Moyane's tenure.

In July 2018, he entered into a highly public spat with Pierre de Vos, a constitutional law expert at the University of Cape Town, who had written a blog which criticised Moyane's submissions to the commission and implied that Dali Mpofu had behaved unethically in advancing those submissions on Moyane's behalf.

Dali Mpofu represented Moyane at the State Capture Commission, which investigated allegations that Moyane had presided over state capture at SARS.

In March 2021, Dali Mpofu cross-examined Minister Pravin Gordhan on Moyane's behalf and shortly afterwards entered into an angry exchange with Gordhan and his lawyer, Michelle le Roux, in which he said that "Miss le Roux must shut up when I am speaking" and then, after Gordhan attempted to interject, told Gordhan, "you shut up".

In March 2022, the Johannesburg Society of Advocates ruled that Dali Mpofu had breached the bar's ethical code, though a separate inquiry by the national Legal Practice Council cleared him on an unprofessional conduct charge in June.

In May 2021, Dali Mpofu joined the defence of former President Jacob Zuma, who was facing newly reinstated corruption charges.

Dali Mpofu was appointed lead counsel in the corruption trial, replacing Muzi Sikhakhane, and he advised Zuma's defence in the separate contempt of court trial which saw Zuma imprisoned in July 2021.

Dali Mpofu represented Busisiwe Mkhwebane in her application to interdict Parliament's attempts to institute impeachment proceedings against her and remove her from office as Public Protector.

Commentators accused Dali Mpofu of applying Zuma's Stalingrad defence strategy to Mkhwebane's defence, attempting to stall the proceedings until late 2023, when Mkhwebane's constitutional term as Public Protector would lapse.

Dali Mpofu has served as counsel in a number of other politically charged cases.

Dali Mpofu represented ANC politician Supra Mahumapelo when Mahumapelo sought reinstatement as ANC Provincial Chairperson in the North West; later, he represented ANC Secretary-General Ace Magashule in his struggle to challenge his suspension and its basis in the ANC's step-aside rule.

In September 2017, President Zuma announced that Dali Mpofu had been appointed with immediate effect to serve on the Judicial Service Commission.

Dali Mpofu was nominated as one of the two representatives of the General Council of the Bar of South Africa: specifically, he was selected by Advocates for Transformation, a professional group which was entitled to indirect nomination on the commission and therefore to nominate one advocate to represent the bar.

Dali Mpofu was re-elected to a second two-year term in the seat in 2019.

Dali Mpofu was widely criticised for remarks he made in February 2022 when the commission was interviewing candidates to replace Mogoeng Mogoeng as Chief Justice of the Constitutional Court.

In early November 2013, Dali Mpofu submitted to a resignation letter to his local ANC branch in Saxonwold and announced that he had joined the Economic Freedom Fighters, a new breakaway party established by Julius Malema after his expulsion from the ANC.

At that time, Dali Mpofu was representing the Marikana mineworkers, a cause on which he and Malema had reportedly collaborated.

Dali Mpofu said that the ANC had abandoned the Freedom Charter and wrote in an opinion piece:.

Ahead of the 2014 general election, the first contested by the EFF, Dali Mpofu stood as the EFF's candidate for election as Premier of Gauteng.

Dali Mpofu was therefore ranked first on the party's provincial list in the election and he comfortably secured one of the eight seats won by the EFF in the Gauteng Provincial Legislature.

However, in the aftermath of the election, the EFF said that Dali Mpofu had asked to decline his seat in order to concentrate on his work at the Marikana Commission and in building the EFF's organisational structures.

In mid-December 2014, at the EFF's first national conference, Dali Mpofu was elected unopposed as National Chairperson of the EFF, serving under Malema as EFF President.

Dali Mpofu was succeeded as National Chairperson by Veronica Mente.

Dali Mpofu stated that he would shut down the EFF if the claims turned out to be true but shortly afterwards lost his position in the party leadership.

Dali Mpofu is a public servant and has served as director-general in the Department of Transport and the Department of Housing; she was appointed as the Secretary of Defence in 2010.

Dali Mpofu remained a member of the ANC after her husband's defection to the EFF.

Dali Mpofu has a son, Sizwe Mpofu-Walsh, with activist and academic Terry Oakley-Smith.