The 59-year-old Motlanthe became South Africa’s interim president on 25 September 2008. Affectionately known as Mkulu, a term of veneration that means ‘elder’ or ‘leader’, he is seen as a left-leaning intellectual who is not afraid to speak his mind.

2008 is likely to go down in history as a tumultuous year for South Africa. A year that started with a power crisis and was followed by the global economic crisis - an active political arena back home that saw the ruling African National Congress (ANC) decide to recall Thabo Mbeki as the country’s president - voting in Kgalema Petrus Motlanthe, the ANC’s deputy president and former secretary general, as interim president of South Africa until the next elections, expected to take place in April 2009.

He gained public support for urging the ANC Youth League to respect the rule of law when ANCYL leader Julius Malema said he was prepared to kill for ANC President Jacob Zuma.

Motlanthe is seen both as a voice of reason and a unifying force within the ANC and was the only person to feature on both the Zuma and Mbeki top lists at the succession battle at the party conference in Polokwane in December last year.



Born on 19 July 1949 in Alexandra Township, close to the centre of Johannesburg, he attended an Anglican missionary school in Alex, now known as Pholos Primary, before moving to Meadowlands, Soweto in 1959. The church played a major role in his formative years and the Tswana-speaking youngster served as an altar boy for many years and even considered becoming a priest.


After matriculating from Orlando High School, Motlanthe went to work for the Johannesburg City Council for several years during the 1970s as a supervisor in the commercial department, overseeing bottlestores and agricultural marketing in the townships. It was during this period that the avid soccer player and jazz lover was recruited to the military wing of the ANC, Umkhonto we Sizwe (meaning “spear of the nation”). Motlanthe’s unit was initially tasked with recruiting new members for military training, but later became involved in sabotage. Motlanthe was arrested by the security police on 14 April 1976, just months before the Soweto uprising, and detained until his trial in February 1977 where he was found guilty on three counts of terrorism and was sent to Robben Island for ten years.

In various reports Motlanthe describes his time of incarceration on the island as an enriching period filled with camaraderie, sharing and learning; although it is bound to have been exceedingly hard and tough.


Shortly after his release in April 1987 he joined the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), first as an education officer, rising to secretary general of the mining union in January 1992, succeeding Cyril Ramaphosa. It was here that Motlanthe began to hone his political skills.


When the ANC was unbanned Motlanthe became chairman of the party’s Gauteng region, but stepped down in September 1991 to devote more time to NUM. The father of two daughters and one son followed in Ramaphosa’s footsteps again and became Secretary General of the ANC in December 1997, a position he held until his appointment as the Deputy President of the ANC in December 2007.


The ANC conference in Polokwane in December 2007 saw Mbeki losing the presidency of the ANC to Zuma, and the new ANC leadership applied pressure on Mbeki to appoint Motlanthe, widely believed to be the brains behind Zuma’s campaign, to the cabinet.

Described as a committed socialist and 120% ANC, Motlanthe became a member of parliament in May 2008, and in a move to facilitate a smooth transition of government after the 2009 elections was appointed to the cabinet as a minister without portfolio in July 2008.

Motlanthe went on to become the third post-apartheid president, winning 269 of a possible 351 parliamentary votes in September, and is widely expected to fill the role of deputy president under Jacob Zuma after the 2009 polls – but is also seen as a potential ANC presidential candidate should Zuma have to withdraw as a result of fraud and corruption charges.

As president he is proving more popular than Mbeki and has gained approval for the appointment of Barbara Hogan as Minister of Health, facilitating a conventional scientific approach to HIV, as well as his assurances that he will stick to former president Mbeki’s pro-business financial policies.


Motlanthe, who has studiously avoided any limelight, appears to put the ANC before himself and is respected by all for his studious regard for process and consultation. Unfortunately, his interim term as president is likely to be too short a period to judge the sort of president he could become.

This article was written by Sharon Davis for the December 2008 issue of Absa Bank's e-Zine for platinum clients called Living the Good Life with Absa Platinum.