Thandi Ruth Modise (born 25 December 1959) is a South African politician who served as the Minister of Defence and Military Veterans from 2021 to 2024.

In 1978 she returned to South Africa as a trained guerrilla operative for MK and from 1980 to 1988 she was imprisoned under the Terrorism Act for her anti-apartheid activism.

She next returned to the executive branch of government in August 2021, when President Cyril Ramaphosa appointed her to replace Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula as Defence Minister.

The student protests were given particular fervor in Huhudi because of the imminent threat that the township would be incorporated into the so-called independent homeland of Bophuthatswana.

[1][2] In January 1978, shortly after her 19th birthday, Modise used a false passport to cross the Swazi border into South Africa, where she worked underground as an MK operative.

[3] Over the course of two days in March 1978, she planted homemade incendiary devices, concealed in matchboxes, inside two OK Bazaars and Edgars stores in Johannesburg.

[3] Modise was arrested on 31 October 1979 in Eldorado Park, where she was completing a new MK assignment which involved political mobilisation through a network of underground ANC cells in the area.

[3] While in prison, she completed her matriculation certificate and, through the University of South Africa,[4] a Bachelor's degree in industrial psychology and economics.

[12] During this period, Modise and others, backed by Supra Mahumapelo and other provincial leaders of the ANC Youth League, introduced an unsuccessful motion of no confidence in Molefe's leadership of the party.

[14] Ahead of the 2002 North West ANC provincial elective conference, Modise mounted an unsuccessful challenge to Molefe's bid for re-election.

She was nominated from the floor of the conference after Baleka Mbete, the frontrunner until then, withdrew her name to stand instead for the position of National Chairperson.

[23][24] Modise's candidacy was part of an informal slate aligned to Jacob Zuma, who won the ANC presidency at the same conference.

She later said, during a 2021 hearing of the Zondo Commission, that it was "a pity" that she and other parliamentary leaders did not "wake up" to allegations of state capture during Zuma's presidency and therefore did not use Parliament's investigatory powers to their fullest.

[34]In 2017, NCOP administrators reportedly advised Modise that she had claimed an excessively large parliamentary travel allowance, calculated using an incorrect formula.

[38][39] Addressing the rumours, Modise said lightheartedly, "If the ANC asks you to do something, you go, but I wish they don’t send me back there";[40] she ultimately served the full parliamentary term as NCOP Chairperson.

[41] In 2021, the Daily Maverick complimented Modise's performance, which it said had helped restore dignity to the assembly's proceedings after years of "destabilising" controversy during Zuma's administration.

[42] This assessment received wide assent among parliamentary leaders of the country's opposition parties: the United Democratic Movement's Bantu Holomisa described Modise as "a no-nonsense-taker", while Narend Singh of Inkatha Freedom Party said she had "run a tight ship" and the Democratic Alliance's Natasha Mazzone described her as the legislature's "UN peacekeeping force" and as truly non-partisan.

[43][44] She served in the office until the 2024 general election, when she lost her seat in the National Assembly as a result of the ANC's decline in electoral support.

After almost three hours, members of the Special Task Force entered the hotel, freeing the hostages and making dozens of arrests.

[50] Controversially, Modise recommended that the mainstream party should disband the incumbent leadership of the league, at that time headed by Bathabile Dlamini.

[54] In July 2014, the NSPCA discovered a number of dead animals, including chickens, pigs, goats and geese, on a farm owned by Modise in Modderfontein outside Potchefstroom.

[55][56] Modise said that the animals had been abandoned by a caretaker she had hired to monitor the farm while she was attending to her NCOP responsibilities in Cape Town, and she said she was "saddened" by the incident.