[1] He became politically active while at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, where he joined the African National Congress (ANC) Youth League (ANCYL).
[3][4] Shortly after being elected, the branch's leadership announced that it would support controversial politician Julius Malema in his bid for re-election as national president of the league.
ANCYL spokesperson Floyd Shivambu specifically singled out Duma's "factionalist" comment as an instance in which the KwaZulu-Natal leadership had shown "disregard of organisational process and due political conduct".
[10] He campaigned at the head of a slate of candidates who represented the so-called "Taliban" faction, which was sympathetic to former party president Jacob Zuma.
[11] Duma later explained that the name alluded to his slate's status as "underdogs" and to "the resilience of the Taliban in fighting against the United States all these years".
[12] Candidates linked to the Taliban faction made a clean sweep of all the provincial leadership positions contested at the conference.
On 11 August, in a cabinet reshuffle by Dube-Ncube, Duma was appointed as the Member of the Executive Council (MEC) for Economic Development, Tourism and Environmental Affairs in the KwaZulu-Natal provincial government.