Sibongile Jeremia Besani (born 11 July 1970) is a South African politician from the Free State.
For a brief period between May and July 2019, Besani represented the ANC as a Member of the National Assembly of South Africa.
[6] In early 2012, as the next provincial elective conference approached, Besani was touted as a possible candidate to challenge Magashule for the party chairmanship.
[7] He became associated with the so-called Regime Change Group in the Free State, which also included outgoing Provincial Treasurer Mxolisi Dukwana, among others.
[11] Magashule, who was re-elected as Provincial Chairperson, said in subsequent weeks that he had reached out to Besani and Dukwana, saying:We will never purge people...
[12]The outcomes of the June 2012 elective conference were subsequently challenged in court by a group of disgruntled party members.
The case went to the Constitutional Court, where counsel for the complainants, Dali Mpofu, used Besani's secretarial reports to the ANC national leadership to argue that there had been severe irregularities in preparations for the elections.
Besani was appointed as coordinator of the task team – a position roughly equivalent to the secretarial office formerly held by Njabulo Nzuza – alongside convenor Tandi Mahambehlala.
[30] On 10 February, Magashule – now in his capacity as ANC Secretary-General – said that the NEC had rejected Besani's resignation and expected him to return to his coordinator role with immediate effect.
[31][32] In September 2020, the task team increasingly came under pressure from ANCYL members who objected to the advanced age of the interim leaders, as well as to delays in convening the league's next elective conference.
[34] At the ANC's 55th National Conference in December 2022, Besani was re-elected to the NEC with 1,546 votes across roughly 4,000 ballots, making him the 20th-most popular member of the new committee.
[38][39] Between 2009 and 2011, he was a director of Mpaki Investments, which in 2012 was investigated for allegedly submitting fraudulent VAT claims to the South African Revenue Service.