50 Facts About Thandi Modise

Thandi Ruth Modise was born on 25 December 1959 and is a South African politician who served as the Minister of Defence and Military Veterans from 2021 to 2024.

Thandi Modise was previously the Premier of the North West from 2010 to 2014, Chairperson of the National Council of Provinces from 2014 to 2019, and Speaker of the National Assembly from 2019 to 2021.

Thandi Modise was elected to the South African Parliament in South Africa's first democratic election in 1994.

Thandi Modise next returned to the executive branch of government in August 2021, when President Cyril Ramaphosa appointed her to replace Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula as Defence Minister.

Thandi Modise has held various senior positions in the ANC, including as Deputy President of the ANC Women's League from 1993 to 2003 under Winnie Madikizela-Mandela and as Deputy Secretary-General of the ANC from 2007 to 2012 under Jacob Zuma.

Thandi Modise was first elected to the ANC National Executive Committee in December 1994, and she was re-elected to another five-year term on the committee in December 2022.

Thandi Modise was born on 25 December 1959 in Huhudi, a township near Vryburg in what is the North West province.

Thandi Modise's father, Frans Modise, was a railway worker and a member of the African National Congress, which was banned by the apartheid government the year after Modise's birth.

Thandi Modise was educated at Barolong High School until she dropped out in July 1976 during the Soweto uprising.

In January 1978, shortly after her 19th birthday, Thandi Modise used a false passport to cross the Swazi border into South Africa, where she worked underground as an MK operative.

Thandi Modise had received topographical training and her primary task was reconnaissance of potential targets for sabotage and other guerrilla attacks.

Thandi Modise was based variously in Johannesburg, in Diepkloof, Soweto, and in Eldorado Park, and she occasionally crossed back into Swaziland to report back to the MK regional command stationed there.

Thandi Modise was arrested on 31 October 1979 in Eldorado Park, where she was completing a new MK assignment which involved political mobilisation through a network of underground ANC cells in the area.

Thandi Modise was detained without trial during five months of interrogation at the notorious John Vorster Square.

Thandi Modise later told a judge that, though she was pregnant during the first months of her detention, she had been intimidated and assaulted by police officers.

Thandi Modise faced various charges related to her MK activities between 1976 and 1978, including that she had trained with MK, plotted to commit arson, propagated the aims of the banned ANC, conducted reconnaissance with the intention to commit sabotage, possessed illegal weapons and explosives, and recruited for the ANC.

Thandi Modise served her full eight-year sentence in Pretoria Central Prison, Kroonstad Women's Prison, and Klerksdorp Women's Prison.

In South Africa's first post-apartheid election in April 1994, Thandi Modise was elected to represent the ANC in the National Assembly, the lower house of the new South African Parliament.

Thandi Modise held her seat until 2004 and from 1998 onwards, she served as chairperson of the Portfolio Committee on Defence and Joint Standing Committee on Defence.

Thandi Modise was a member of the Robben Island Museum Council from 1994 to 2010.

For much of her early parliamentary career, Thandi Modise served as an ordinary member of the ANC's National Executive Committee.

Thandi Modise was first elected to the committee at the party's 49th National Conference in December 1994; by popularity she was ranked 50th of 60 candidates elected.

The Mahumapelo-led pro-Thandi Modise faction was nicknamed "the Talibans", a moniker that was borrowed two decades later by Siboniso Duma's faction in the KwaZulu-Natal ANC.

Ahead of the 2002 North West ANC provincial elective conference, Thandi Modise mounted an unsuccessful challenge to Molefe's bid for re-election.

Thandi Modise was viewed as the favoured candidate of the incumbent national leadership of the party under ANC President Thabo Mbeki.

However, when the elective conference was held in June 2002 in Rustenberg, Thandi Modise lost, winning only 229 votes against Molefe's 355.

Thandi Modise served as a member of the National Executive Committee of the ANC Women's League from 1991 until December 1993, when she was elected as deputy president of the league.

Thandi Modise held that position for two terms until 2003.

Towards the end of her second term, in April 2003, Winnie Madikizela-Mandela resigned as ANC Women's League president and Thandi Modise stepped in as acting president.

Pursuant to the 2004 general election, Thandi Modise left the national Parliament to become a member of the North West Provincial Legislature.

Thandi Modise was Speaker of the provincial legislature from 2004 to 2009.

At the ANC's 52nd National Conference in December 2007, Thandi Modise was elected to a five-year term as Deputy Secretary-General of the ANC.

Thandi Modise was nominated from the floor of the conference after Baleka Mbete, the frontrunner until then, withdrew her name to stand instead for the position of National Chairperson.

Thandi Modise's candidacy was part of an informal slate aligned to Jacob Zuma, who won the ANC presidency at the same conference.

Thandi Modise comfortably defeated Thoko Didiza for the position, winning 2,304 votes to Didiza's 1,455.

Thandi Modise failed to gain election to an ordinary seat on the National Executive Committee.

Thandi Modise was Premier during the Marikana massacre in the North West in 2012.

Thandi Modise remained in office as Premier until the next general election in 2014, when she was succeeded by Mahumapelo.

Pursuant to the 2014 election, Thandi Modise was elected unopposed as Chairperson of the National Council of Provinces, the upper house of the national Parliament.

Thandi Modise held the position throughout the second term of President Jacob Zuma.

Thandi Modise later said, during a 2021 hearing of the Zondo Commission, that it was "a pity" that she and other parliamentary leaders did not "wake up" to allegations of state capture during Zuma's presidency and therefore did not use Parliament's investigatory powers to their fullest.

Thandi Modise was asked to repay the R125,953 which she had received in excess since 2014.

Thandi Modise's appointment was part of a cabinet reshuffle which saw her swap positions with former Defence Minister Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula and which was partly intended to reinvigorate the so-called security cluster of ministries following an episode of serious civil unrest.

Thandi Modise served in the office until the 2024 general election, when she lost her seat in the National Assembly as a result of the ANC's decline in electoral support.

Thandi Modise was detained with 25 others, including her deputy, Thabang Makwetla, and the Minister in the Presidency, Mondli Gungubele.

Controversially, Thandi Modise recommended that the mainstream party should disband the incumbent leadership of the league, at that time headed by Bathabile Dlamini.

Ahead of the ANC's 55th National Conference in December 2022, there were rumours that Thandi Modise was a possible candidate to become ANC Deputy President.

Thandi Modise said that the animals had been abandoned by a caretaker she had hired to monitor the farm while she was attending to her NCOP responsibilities in Cape Town, and she said she was "saddened" by the incident.

The Freedom Front Plus said that Thandi Modise was a poor example for emerging black farmers.

Thandi Modise gave birth to a daughter named Boingotlo in January 1975 when she was still in high school.