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

[2] After his acquittal in April 1981, he took up work as a spot-welder at a Mercedes-Benz factory, where he organised on behalf of the South African Allied Workers' Union.

[7] In addition, along with George Bizos and others, he served on the legal team that represented Madikizela-Mandela when she was prosecuted for her alleged involvement in the murder of Stompie Seipei.

[2] By 1991, City Press had reported on rumours that Madikizela-Mandela had an affair with Mpofu while her husband, political prisoner Nelson Mandela, was on Robben Island.

[11] Also in 1992, Mpofu completed an LLB at Wits,[14] 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.

[5] After a brief stint as an acting judge in the Labour Court of South Africa in 2000, he worked as executive director for corporate affairs at Altron Group, an ICT company, from 2000 to 2005.

[17][18][19] In addition, Business Day later pointed out that, during Mpofu's tenure, the SABC required several large bail-outs from the central government.

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

[11] He 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.

Controversially,[34][35] he refused to work pro bono and withdrew from proceedings briefly between June and October 2013, during which time he lodged a successful court application to have the state cover the mineworkers' legal fees.

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

[42] Mpofu posted a series of angry ripostes on Twitter, alleging that de Vos's piece was "defamatory, insulting & possibly racist" and threatening to sue him if he did not delete it.

[47] The chairman of the commission, Deputy Chief Justice Raymond Zondo, lamented Mpofu's behaviour at length, calling it "unacceptable".

[55] Mpofu has denied accusations that Zuma's strategy in the corruption trial amounts to a Stalingrad defence, intended to delay prosecution indefinitely.

[56] 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.

[63][64] In late March 2023, Mkhwebane said that she had stopped giving instructions to Mpofu and his team because the Public Protector's office had refused to pay any further legal fees on her behalf.

[68] Other former clients include Fees Must Fall activists at Wits University, including Mcebo Dlamini;[69][70] abaThembu King Buyelekhaya Dalindyebo, whose claim to the title was challenged by President Zuma;[38] Gareth Cliff, who sued M-Net for sacking him after he publicly defended a derogatory Tweet by Penny Sparrow;[71] and Zandile Mafe, who was accused of setting fire to the Parliament buildings.

[80] In addition, in the phrase of the Mail & Guardian, Mpofu was viewed as having "ambush[ed]" another of the applicants, Gauteng Judge President Dunstan Mlambo, with questions about unsubstantiated sexual harassment rumours.

[78] The Pretoria Society of Advocates wrote to the General Council of the Bar to demand that Mpofu should be recalled from the commission and that his "unacceptable" and sexist remarks should be condemned.

[81] In addition, Adriaan Basson of News24 published an editorial which was highly critical of Mpofu's conduct – calling him "a scoundrel, immoral and a nincompoop"[75] – and which intensified the controversy by inviting a response from twenty other advocates (among them Dumisa Ntsebeza, Nomgcobo Jiba, and Menzi Simelane) who accused Basson of attacking Mpofu with "gratuitous insults typical of the colonial and barbaric attitude of whiteness towards Africans".

[33] Indeed, the Mail & Guardian said that he had been "doing Malema's bidding (behind the scenes) way before his announcement was made, helping in attempts at courting crucial leftist individuals to fill out the structure of the organisation".

[88] As the end of his term as National Chairperson approached, Mpofu ran for re-election to high party office on a slate of candidates which also included Mandisa Mashego.

[92] He said that he was unbothered about the election result, saying that – as with Kgalema Motlanthe's challenge to Jacob Zuma at the ANC's 53rd National Conference – "the point of this exercise was not to win" but to assert "the principle that there's no position that is beyond contestation".

[93] In a debate in Parliament in 2019 President Cyril Ramaphosa stated that he had received intelligence reports claiming that the EFF was "an MI6 project".

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.

[10][97] In April 2013, while representing mineworkers at the Marikana Commission, Mpofu was stabbed several times in a mugging on Eastern Beach in East London.