Politically, Jacob Zuma was a dead man walking. Three days earlier, he had conveyed a request to the ANC’s national working committee (NWC) to withdraw his participation in all the party’s structures.
The NWC accepted his request and took it to the party’s higher decision-making body, the national executive committee (NEC).
The NEC, too, had no qualms about accepting that Zuma would step aside “pending the completion of the legal process”, and Kgalema Motlanthe, then the ANC’s secretary-general, reported as much to the 1,500 delegates packed into the University of Pretoria’s sports centre on the first day of the party’s national general council (NGC) in July 2005.
This was the first major gathering of the ruling party since, a month earlier, then-president Thabo Mbeki had announced he was removing Zuma from the cabinet, where he served as the country’s deputy president. This decision came after a damning judgment in the Schabir Shaik corruption trial that heavily implicated Zuma in graft.
On the day Zuma sent through his request to the NWC, he had been formally informed by the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) that it intended charging him for corruption.
His political career seemed over, and his presidential ambitions appeared permanently thwarted.
We are not going to allow anybody to run amok in the country, to … turn South Africa into a Banana Republic
— Nathi Mthethwa, addressing the striking Marikana miners
Reporting on the events of that first day of the 2005 NGC, the Sunday Times was to write that at lunchtime, after Motlanthe’s report to the delegates, Zuma “looked like a broken man” who knew he was “down and out”.
But then, soon after lunch — in a session closed to television cameras and the media in general — tensions exploded into the open.
Emmanuel Nkosinathi Mthethwa, a 38-year-old member of the KwaZulu-Natal provincial executive committee and an ANC MP, was the first to speak out. He demanded that the NEC rescind its decision to accept Zuma’s withdrawal from party structures — to thunderous applause from the rank-and-file delegates.
A rebellion against Mbeki and his NEC had begun.
By the end of the debate, seven out of the nine provincial delegations were on Mthethwa’s side. It was a great victory for Zuma, and one that gave him a political lifeline, reviving his bid to be the ANC’s and the country’s next president.
A few years later, Nathi Mthethwa — now a police minister in Zuma’s cabinet — was to look back on that moment that earned him a reputation as a brave and loyal campaigner among the Zuma faithful.
“It was tense, because people generally had this fear of speaking out,” he told journalist Fiona Forde. “I don’t know where that came from, because one thing we learned from the struggle was that it was never for cowards. And when we got to the NGC, people knew what they wanted. But someone had to say it.”
Political activists who knew Mthethwa from his teenage years in 1980s Durban, where he was a member of the United Democratic Front-aligned Klaarwater Youth Organisation, would not be surprised to learn it was he who led the charge.
Back then, he had built a name for himself as an outspoken and uncompromising activist — a reputation that earned him a couple of stints as a detainee without trial under the state of emergency regulations imposed by then-president PW Botha’s regime. These developments also led to Mthethwa being noticed by the ANC underground, which promptly recruited him to do clandestine political work among youth and workers in the then politically volatile province of Natal.
Those who knew him in the 1990s would also not be surprised by his loyalty to Zuma.
When Zuma returned to KwaZulu-Natal to lead the ANC’s efforts there in the mid-1990s, Mthethwa was among a group of young leaders Zuma had taken under his wing and mentored.
The two of them grew particularly close because, while Mthethwa had cut his teeth in the city, like Zuma he had been born in the rural heartland and spent his formative years herding cattle.
In the ANC Youth League, Mthethwa was among the most enthusiastic campaigners for Zuma to succeed Mbeki as ANC deputy president when the latter was preparing to take over from Nelson Mandela as party president ahead of the party’s 1997 national conference in Mahikeng.
Mthethwa had also backed the same slate at the Stellenbosch conference on the understanding that, when Mbeki finished his second term as president in 2007, Zuma would succeed him.
When it became clear Mbeki didn’t support Zuma’s ascendency to the presidency, Mthethwa opposed him. After Mbeki’s defeat as ANC president at the Polokwane conference and his subsequent removal from office in 2008, Mthethwa was appointed minister of safety & security by then-president Motlanthe. He was to hold the same portfolio, now renamed minister of police, when Zuma became the country’s president in 2009.
His tenure in this position was marred by several controversies, most of which could be attributed to his proximity and loyalty to Zuma.
When exorbitant “security upgrades” were done at Zuma’s private homestead in Nkandla, Mthethwa declared the KwaDakwadunuse residence a “national key point” and tried to enforce a ban on taking pictures of the homestead.
Public protector Thuli Madonsela was to later find that Mthethwa’s declaration amounted to improper conduct and maladministration, and she recommended that the president reprimand him for it
As police minister, Mthethwa also played a central role in post-apartheid South Africa’s most painful and shameful episode — the police’s killing of 34 striking miners in Marikana, North West province.
Here, as your leadership, we are confident that what you have done, you did … trying to ensure the rule of law reigns in South Africa. We are not going to allow anybody to run amok in the country, to … turn South Africa into a Banana Republic.
A day after the massacre, Mthethwa was video-recorded addressing a group of police officers deployed at the Lonmin mine. Among other statements, he said: “As your minister and on behalf of the government … on behalf of the president … we are all behind you. We know what you have gone through — this period, this week — and we would want you to continue ensuring that lives are saved, [and that] property is protected against anybody who’d want to do bad things in this country.
“Here, as your leadership, we are confident that what you have done, you did … trying to ensure the rule of law reigns in South Africa. We are not going to allow anybody to run amok in the country, to … turn South Africa into a Banana Republic.”
At the Farlam commission, appointed to investigate the massacre and headed by judge Ian Farlam, advocate Dumisa Ntsebeza submitted that Mthethwa’s comments seemed to justify the killings on the basis that the striking workers were “running amok”.
The massacre took place in August 2012, a few months before the ANC’s elective conference, where Zuma was to be challenged by his then deputy, Kgalema Motlanthe, for the party presidency.
To fend off this challenge, the Zuma camp had thrown its weight behind NEC member and tycoon Cyril Ramaphosa for the position of next deputy president. Ramaphosa happened to serve on the Lonmin board, among other prominent business positions, at the time.
It would later emerge that Ramaphosa sent an e-mail to Lonmin board members informing them of his efforts to get the government to intervene in the violent strike, which had already claimed 10 lives, and advising them he believed that this would get “Mthethwa to act in a more pointed way”.
Lawyers for the families of the 34 miners who were killed argued before the commission that, under pressure from Ramaphosa and his political principals, Mthethwa and former national police commissioner Riah Phiyega put pressure on the police to use force to break the strike — leading to the August 16 massacre. Mthethwa denied he was under any political pressure to adopt a harsher approach towards the striking miners.
In his final report, judge Farlam condemned the speech Mthethwa had delivered a day after the killings, saying it constituted “a serious error of judgment … in giving what would have been understood to be an unqualified endorsement of the police action”.
How many other people would have died if, for example, police did not move to disarm these people? Nobody can tell. [On the] spur of the moment, a mistake happened. Now, if such a mistake happens, you throw the minister away? I don’t know on what basis [you would do that], because there are facts that need to be weighed in.
— Former president Jacob to London-based The Guardian newspaper: “
Though the judge could not find conclusive evidence that, through Mthethwa, political pressure was exerted on police to use lethal force, he could not clear him either.
“If guidance of the executive played a role, then it is probable that such guidance was conveyed by minister Mthethwa. The commission wishes to emphasise that it is not finding that such ‘guidance’ was given. It is, however, unable in the light of what has been said to find positively in minister Mthethwa’s favour on this point.”
When he was asked why he did not fire Mthethwa for the massacre, Zuma told the London-based The Guardian newspaper: “How many other people would have died if, for example, police did not move to disarm these people? Nobody can tell. [On the] spur of the moment, a mistake happened. Now, if such a mistake happens, you throw the minister away? I don’t know on what basis [you would do that], because there are facts that need to be weighed in.”
The attitude of delegates at the 2012 ANC conference was not dissimilar. Not only did the Zuma slate, with Ramaphosa as deputy president, make a clean sweep, but Mthethwa was among the top 10 most popular NEC members in terms of votes received.
However, this popularity was not enough for him to be retained in the police portfolio. Two years later, following the 2014 general elections, he was moved to arts & culture amid claims from Mthethwa’s sympathisers that the president was unhappy with the minister’s inability to protect controversial crime intelligence boss, and Zuma ally, Gen Richard Mdluli.
Nevertheless, while testifying before the Madlanga commission last month, KwaZulu-Natal police commissioner Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi, who was acting national commissioner in 2011, told of how Mthethwa put pressure on him and former inspector-general of intelligence Faith Radebe to withdraw criminal charges that had been drawn up against Mdluli.
Though Mkhwanazi was eventually forced out as national police commissioner, a court instructed the police to reinstate all criminal charges against Mdluli, who is now in prison for kidnapping and assault and is on trial in another matter.
At arts & culture, Mthethwa continued to be regarded as close to Zuma, even though some of his associates said he had grown critical of Zuma’s association with the Guptas.
At the ANC’s 2017 national conference, he stood against Gwede Mantashe for the position of national chair and narrowly lost. His name was on the losing slate that wanted Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma for president.
Despite this, when Ramaphosa came into power, he retained Mthethwa in his cabinet post as a way of forging unity. Even after his failure to make it to the NEC at the 2022 conference, Ramaphosa still kept him as minister of arts & culture for the same reasons.
Although he is one of the country’s longest serving arts and culture minister, having held the position for nine years, he never received universal approval from the arts industry, with some accusing him of favouring popular culture and celebrities at their expense. Soon he’d acquire the unflattering monicker of “minister of condolences and congratulations” from industry players who claimed that he only became visible when a famous artist or sports personality has either died or won some important accolade.
But on his watch, the department did deliver on some important projects, including the repatriation of the remains of a number of prominent South Africans who died in exile. These would include ANC stalwart and the longest-serving SACP general secretary, Moses Kotane.
But even here sometimes there were claims that he sort to use some of the events to promote his boss. For instance, when the remains of writer and late journalist Nat Nakasa were being brought back to South Africa, it is reported that there was a big debate between him and the leadership of the South African Editor’s Forum over his wish to have Zuma as a keynote speaker at the reburial.)
The president’s hand was forced however, when the controversy over Mthethwa’s plans to erect a R22 million flag that “glows in the dark” over Pretoria meant that he couldn’t keep him in the executive.
Pretoria broke and meant he couldn’t keep him in the executive.
But such was the personal relationship between Mthethwa and the president that, when he had to be given a diplomatic post, the president sent him to Paris — a city he and his wife, Philisiwe Buthelezi, loved.
When the couple married in 2013, they chose as the wedding venue Franschhoek in the Western Cape because it apparently reminded the bride — at the time the CEO of the National Empowerment Fund — of France, where she had lived for years.
Sadly, Paris was to be where her husband’s life came to a dramatic end.
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