Manemolla David Makhura (born 22 February 1968) is a South African politician who served as the sixth Premier of Gauteng from May 2014 to October 2022.
He rose to national prominence as the provincial secretary of the Gauteng branch of the ANC, a position he held continuously between November 2001 and October 2014.
His administration's policy platform emphasized economic modernisation and growth, notably through its programme of revitalising the township economy.
Makhura was born on 22 February 1968 at Mara Buysdorp in the Soutpansberg of the former Northern Transvaal, a region that later became part of Limpopo Province.
[1] In 2001, he spearheaded an unsuccessful challenge to oust Malusi Gigaba from the league presidency, with Mahlengi Bhengu as his running mate and various former SASCO colleagues as his backers.
[9] He had never served in the mainstream ANC's provincial executive before, but he had been appointed as interim coordinator of the branch in 2000 after Mathole Motshekga's leadership corps was disbanded.
[14] The announcement was a surprise to many observers and was the product of political compromise: because of the deteriorating relationship between the Gauteng ANC and the national ANC leadership, the most obvious candidates – the incumbent premier, Nomvula Mokonyane, and Mashatile himself – were ruled out, and the Gauteng party nominated three compromise candidates: Makhura, Barbara Creecy, and Ntombi Mekgwe.
[25] The so-called Township Economy Revitalisation Programme remained a cornerstone policy of Makhura's second term and it was generally well received.
[29] Another initiative announced in Makhura's first State of the Province Address was the establishment of a panel to review the impact of the e-tolling policy.
[36] For many observers,[37] the largest scandal of Makhura's administration was the Life Esidimeni scandal: the 2016 revelations that dozens of psychiatric patients had died in under-resourced and unlicensed private care homes after being moved to those homes as part of the policy of deinstitutionalisation adopted by the Gauteng Department of Health under the leadership of Makhura's provincial health minister, Qedani Mahlangu.
In his report on the scandal, health ombudsman Malegapuru Makgoba found that Makhura had not been responsible for the deinstitutionalisation policy or aware of the fatalities.
[49] In subsequent years, the pair continued to work closely together, though there were reports that their relationship grew strained in 2016 when Mashatile returned to Gauteng from the national government to serve in Makhura's Executive Council.
[52] Maile's faction, which dominated the newly elected Provincial Executive Committee, was viewed as hostile to Makhura's leadership.
[11] He therefore did not stand for re-election in 2022, though he acknowledged that the election of a new party leader might create two centres of power, making it politically untenable for him to stay on as premier.
[63] At the committee's first meeting in February 2023, Makhura was named as the party's head of political education, a position that would involve full-time work at ANC headquarters at Luthuli House.
[66] Masondo pushed for significant internal reforms in these positions, adopting President Cyril Ramaphosa's platform of party "renewal".
[67] In April 2023, he published a set of guidelines for future coalition negotiations,[68] and the Daily Maverick reported that in November 2023 he tabled a proposal recommending that the ANC should not form governments with either the Economic Freedom Fighters or the Patriotic Alliance.