Mbhazima Shilowa
Born in the rural Northern Province, Shilowa became active in the trade union movement as a shop steward in Johannesburg in 1981.
He became COPE's inaugural deputy president and, after the April 2009 general election, its chief whip in the National Assembly of South Africa.
[1][5] Shilowa became involved in the trade union movement in 1981 when he was elected as shop steward at his workplace at Anglo-Alpha Cement; he later held the same position at PSG Services.
[1] Over the next decade, he rose rapidly in the movement's ranks, becoming deputy chairperson of the Witwatersrand hub of the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu).
[3] Shilowa was elected to succeed Naidoo as Cosatu general secretary at a special union congress in 1993, and he held that position for the next six years, gaining re-election in 1994 and 1997.
[14] Controversially, the committee appointed Shilowa to serve on an internal task team charged with investigating the actions of the SACP's left wing during the ANC's 50th Conference.
[1] The announcement followed prolonged speculation that Shilowa would leave the trade union movement for a senior government position,[16] though he had been expected to join the national cabinet as Minister of Labour.
[17] His premiership campaign also marked his personal rebranding as Mbhazima Shilowa; formerly known in the trade union movement as Sam, he said that he had never liked his Christian name.
[20][21] One of Shilowa's first acts as premier in 1999 was a slate of controversial appointments to the Gauteng Executive Council; his critics accused him of fuelling factionalism in the provincial ANC by sidelining supporters of his predecessor, Mathole Motshekga, and by appointing Motshekga's rival Amos Masondo as his political adviser.
[24] He became a moderately popular premier; at the conclusion of his term, the opposition Democratic Alliance complimented his economic policies, but critics accused him of failing to combat corruption and service delivery failures.
[36] At the conclusion of his second term as provincial chairperson in October 2007, Shilowa declined a nomination to stand for a third; instead, he reportedly supported Paul Mashatile's successful bid to succeed him.
He explained: I am resigning due to my convictions that while the African National Congress has the right to recall any of its deployed cadres, the decision needs to be based on solid facts, be fair and just.
I also did not feel that I will be able to, with conviction, publicly explain or defend the national executive committee’s decision on comrade Thabo Mbeki...
[45]He later said that Mbeki's ouster had been "the straw that broke the camel's back", compounding his pre-existing concerns about the contemporary ANC's approach to "honesty, integrity, solidarity, humaneness and the rule of law".
[47] On 15 October 2008, he held a press conference in Johannesburg at which he announced that he had resigned from the ANC to work full-time as the "convenor and volunteer-in-chief" of Lekota's initiative.
"[52] In the remainder of 2008, Shilowa and Lekota, known to the press by the portmanteau Shikota, spearheaded the launch of a new political party peopled by Mbeki's supporters in the ANC.
[64][65] Internal divisions were visible by the end of 2009,[66] and the party's national congress in Centurion in May 2010 collapsed after Shilowa-aligned delegates purported to pass a motion of no-confidence in Lekota.
[67] In October 2010, Lekota's camp resolved to suspend Shilowa from his position as COPE chief whip and accounting officer, alleging that he had been implicated in financial mismanagement.
[68][69] However, his suspension was declared invalid by the Western Cape High Court, which said that he had unlawfully been denied the right to respond to the charges against him.
[81][82] The lawsuit finally concluded in October 2013, when the Johannesburg High Court upheld Lekota's claim to the COPE leadership, ruling that the December 2010 congress had been inquorate and therefore was incompetent to elect Shilowa as president.
[92] In addition to his children with Luhabe, Shilowa reportedly has two sons from a former customary marriage to Caroline Rikhotso;[93] the youngest sued successfully for child support in 2007.
