43 Facts About Mbhazima Shilowa

Mbhazima Samuel Shilowa was born on 30 April 1958 and is a retired South African politician and former trade unionist.

Mbhazima Shilowa was the third Premier of Gauteng between 1999 and 2008.

Mbhazima Shilowa was formerly the general secretary of the Congress of South African Trade Unions between 1993 and 1999, and he later became a co-founder of the Congress of the People.

Mbhazima Shilowa rose through the ranks of the Transport and General Workers' Union before becoming Cosatu's deputy general secretary in 1991 and its general secretary in 1993.

Mbhazima Shilowa became COPE's inaugural deputy president and, after the April 2009 general election, its chief whip in the National Assembly of South Africa.

However, within 18 months, COPE was divided by an ongoing leadership contest between Lekota and Mbhazima Shilowa, who claimed to have been elected as COPE's new president by an abortive party conference in December 2010.

Mbhazima Shilowa was born on 30 April 1958 at Olifantshoek, a village in the former Northern Province.

Mbhazima Shilowa was the youngest of seven children and one of only three who survived past infancy.

Mbhazima Shilowa became involved in the trade union movement in 1981 when he was elected as shop steward at his workplace at Anglo-Alpha Cement; he later held the same position at PSG Services.

Mbhazima Shilowa served as vice-president and then briefly as president of the Transport and General Workers' Union, a founding affiliate of Cosatu.

Meanwhile, through Cosatu, Mbhazima Shilowa was active in the anti-apartheid movement's Mass Democratic Movement.

Mbhazima 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.

Under Mbhazima Shilowa, Cosatu became a key campaigning vehicle for the ANC ahead of the first post-apartheid elections in April 1994, under the auspices of the Tripartite Alliance, and its close relationship to the party persisted when the party entered government.

Mbhazima Shilowa was closely involved in the establishment of the National Economic Development and Labour Council.

Mbhazima Shilowa was a close personal friend and informal adviser to Deputy President Thabo Mbeki, and, writing in 1996, Gevisser argued that his political talent and political experience were among his greatest strengths as Cosatu leader, though they made him an object of some suspicion among hardline unionists.

Mbhazima Shilowa was viewed as "uncomfortable with Cosatu's hardline anti-privatisation position".

Mbhazima Shilowa was first elected to the organ at the ANC's 49th National Conference in December 1994, though he resigned before the committee completed its three-year term.

Controversially, the committee appointed Mbhazima Shilowa to serve on an internal task team charged with investigating the actions of the SACP's left wing during the ANC's 50th Conference.

On 23 April 1999, the ANC announced that Mbhazima Shilowa would stand in the upcoming general election as the party's candidate for election as Premier of Gauteng.

The announcement followed prolonged speculation that Mbhazima Shilowa would leave the trade union movement for a senior government position, though he had been expected to join the national cabinet as Minister of Labour.

Mbhazima Shilowa resigned as COSATU secretary-general soon after the 2 June election, when it became clear that the ANC had won a comfortable majority in the Gauteng Provincial Legislature, and he was formally elected as premier, unopposed, on 15 June 1999.

Mbhazima Shilowa was re-elected to a second term as premier after the April 2004 general election.

One of Mbhazima Shilowa's first acts as premier in 1999 was a slate of controversial appointments to the Gauteng Executive Council; his critics accused him of fuelling factionalism in the provincial ANC by sidelining supporters of his predecessor, Mathole Motshekga, and by appointing Motshekga's rival Amos Masondo as his political adviser.

Mbhazima Shilowa became a moderately popular premier; at the conclusion of his term, the opposition Democratic Alliance complimented his economic policies, but critics accused him of failing to combat corruption and service delivery failures.

The best-known initiative of his administration was the Gautrain express rail system, long nicknamed the Mbhazima Shilowa Express, which he announced during his first term as premier.

At a party elective conference in November 2001, Mbhazima Shilowa was elected unopposed as provincial chairperson of the Gauteng ANC.

Mbhazima Shilowa succeeded former premier Motshekga, whose leadership corps had been disbanded in 2000, and he was viewed as the preferred candidate of the incumbent national leadership of the party.

Ahead of the ANC's 52nd National Conference in 2007, as Mbeki approached the end of his second term as ANC president and national president, Mbhazima Shilowa was reportedly a key backer of the resistance against Jacob Zuma's presidential campaign.

Later the same day, Mbhazima Shilowa announced his own resignation as Premier of Gauteng in protest of the party's treatment of Mbeki.

Mbhazima Shilowa 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 the rule of law".

Meanwhile, Mbhazima Shilowa was immediately linked to a rumored breakaway initiative in the ANC, associated with national minister Mosiuoa Lekota.

Mbhazima Shilowa later said that he had approached Lekota after hearing him criticize the ANC in a radio interview.

Mbhazima Shilowa formally announced their plans to establish a political party on 1 November 2008, at a national convention in Sandton, and the following week he announced that the party would be registered as the Congress of the People.

However, when COPE held its inaugural national congress in Bloemfontein in December 2008, the leadership was elected by "consensus" rather than vote, and Mbhazima Shilowa became the party's deputy president, under Lekota as party president.

Mbhazima Shilowa was officially the party's first deputy president, with businesswoman Lynda Odendaal named as second deputy president.

Mbhazima Shilowa 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".

Internal divisions were visible by the end of 2009, and the party's national congress in Centurion in May 2010 collapsed after Mbhazima Shilowa-aligned delegates purported to pass a motion of no-confidence in Lekota.

In December 2010, another COPE national congress devolved into chaos; Mbhazima Shilowa declared that the congress had elected him to succeed Lekota as party president, but Lekota strongly disagreed.

Mbhazima Shilowa, who had refused to participate in the disciplinary process, denied the allegations.

Pursuant to the putative expulsion, Lekota's faction notified the Speaker of the National Assembly that Mbhazima Shilowa was no longer authorized to represent the party in Parliament, but Speaker Max Sisulu did not accept the notification, saying that he could not adjudicate COPE's internal leadership controversies.

Later the same week, Lekota obtained an interim court order interdicting Mbhazima Shilowa from attending Parliament or claiming to lead COPE while a court heard a pending lawsuit between the two factions.

Ahead of the May 2014 general election, Mbhazima Shilowa announced publicly that he would support the campaign of the United Democratic Movement, another ANC breakaway party, though he did not himself officially join the UDM.

Mbhazima Shilowa is married to businesswoman Wendy Luhabe, who was one of COPE's early financiers and fundraisers.