The African National Congress Youth League (ANCYL) is the youth wing of the African National Congress (ANC). As set out in its constitution, the ANC Youth League is led by a National Executive Committee (NEC) and a National Working Committee (NWC).
The African National Congress Youth League (ANCYL) is the youth wing of the African National Congress (ANC). As set out in its constitution, the ANC Youth League is led by a National Executive Committee (NEC) and a National Working Committee (NWC).
Thabo Mvuyelwa Mbeki (Xhosa: [tʰaɓɔ ʼmbɛːki]; born 18 June 1942) is a South African politician and economist who served as the president of South Africa from 14 June 1999 to 24 September 2008, when he resigned at the request of his party, the African National Congress (ANC). Before that, he was deputy president under Nelson Mandela from 1994 to 1999.
The son of Govan Mbeki, an ANC intellectual, Mbeki has been involved in ANC politics since 1956, when he joined the ANC Youth League, and has been a member of the party's National Executive Committee since 1975. Born in the Transkei, he left South Africa aged twenty to attend university in England, and spent almost three decades in exile abroad, until the ANC was unbanned in 1990. He rose through the organisation in its information and publicity section and as Oliver Tambo's protégé, but he was also an experienced diplomat, serving as the ANC's official representative in several of its African outposts. He was an early advocate for and leader of the diplomatic engagements which led to the negotiations to end apartheid. After South Africa's first democratic elections in 1994, he was appointed national deputy president. In subsequent years, it became apparent that he was Mandela's chosen successor, and he was elected unopposed as ANC president in 1997, enabling his rise to the presidency as the ANC's candidate in the 1999 elections.
The Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) is a South African communist and black nationalist political party. It was founded by expelled former African National Congress Youth League (ANCYL) president Julius Malema, and his allies, on 26 July 2013. Malema is president of the EFF, heading the Central Command Team, which serves as the central structure of the party. It is currently the fourth-largest party in the National Assembly.
The party contested elections for the first time in the 2014 South African general election, garnering 6.35% of the national vote and securing 25 seats in the National Assembly.
Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela (/mænˈdɛlə/ man-DEL-ə, Xhosa: [xolíɬaɬa mandɛ̂ːla]; born Rolihlahla Mandela; 18 July 1918 – 5 December 2013) was a South African anti-apartheid activist and statesman who was the first president of South Africa from 1994 to 1999. He was the country's first Black head of state and the first elected in a fully representative democratic election. His administration focused on dismantling the legacy of apartheid by fostering racial reconciliation and a multiracial democracy. Ideologically an African nationalist and socialist, he served as the president of the African National Congress (ANC) party from 1991 to 1997.
A Xhosa, Mandela was born into the Thembu royal family in Mvezo, South Africa. He studied law at the University of Fort Hare and the University of Witwatersrand before working as a lawyer in Johannesburg. There he became involved in anti-colonial and African nationalist politics, joining the ANC in 1943 and co-founding its Youth League in 1944. After the National Party's white-only government established apartheid, a system of racial segregation that privileged whites, Mandela and the ANC committed themselves to its overthrow. He was appointed president of the ANC's Transvaal branch, rising to prominence for his involvement in the 1952 Defiance Campaign and the 1955 Congress of the People. He was repeatedly arrested for seditious activities and was unsuccessfully prosecuted in the 1956 Treason Trial. Influenced by Marxism, he secretly joined the banned South African Communist Party (SACP). Although initially committed to non-violent protest, in association with the SACP he co-founded the militant uMkhonto we Sizwe in 1961 that led a sabotage campaign against the apartheid government. He was arrested and imprisoned in 1962, and, following the Rivonia Trial, was sentenced to life imprisonment for conspiring to overthrow the state.
Julius Sello Malema (born 3 March 1981) is a South African politician. He is the founder and leader of the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), a communist and black nationalist political party since 2013. Before the foundation of EFF, he served as a president of the African National Congress Youth League (ANCYL) from 2008 until his expulsion from the party in 2012.
As a child, Malema joined the ANC and was a highly engaged member while growing up; he was ultimately elected president of its Youth League in April 2008 under controversial circumstances. While president, he was an early proponent of nationalising South Africa's mining industry and expropriating land without compensation. He rose to national prominence as an outspoken supporter of Jacob Zuma, then ANC president and later President of South Africa.