He left his seat after the 2019 general election, in which the ANC controversially declined to nominate him for re-election.
Johnson was born on 5 February 1964 in Keiskammahoek[1] and grew up in New Brighton outside Port Elizabeth in the former Cape Province.
[3] Come of age at the height of apartheid, Johnson was active in the Young Christian Workers and the Congress of South African Students (COSAS).
[4] He was subsequently detained by police during the 1986 state of emergency and was held without trial in the Eastern Cape until April 1989, when he was released after participating in a nationwide hunger strike by political prisoners.
[10] Although the ANCYL maintained its traditional populist stance – including by supporting the increasingly beleaguered Winnie Madikizela-Mandela – it was weakened by factional disputes[11] and its membership declined to about 150,000 active members by 1996.
[12] Johnson served only one term as ANCYL President: at the league's next national elective conference in March 1996, he did not stand for re-election and was succeeded by Malusi Gigaba.
[19]In 2022, ahead of the ANC's 55th National Conference, Johnson was not nominated to stand for the ANC National Executive Committee and became one of 16 complainants who signed a letter objecting to the party's internal nominations process.