Former speaker of the National Assembly Thandi Modise, who fought in the ANC’s armed struggle in exile and chaired two parliamentary committees on defence, is the new minister of defence.
She replaces former minister Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula, whose standing with President Cyril Ramaphosa took a knock recently when she contradicted him by saying the unrest and violence in KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng was not an insurrection.
Modise exercised a firm grip over the often rowdy sessions of the National Assembly in her role as speaker. Before coming to the post, she was chair of the National Council of Provinces from 2014 to 2019, and before that she served as chair of several parliamentary committees, including the portfolio committee on defence and the joint standing committee on defence. Her parliamentary career started in 1994.
She was speaker of the North West provincial legislature from 2004 to 2009 and premier of the province from 2010 to 2014.
She also served as deputy president and acting president of the ANC Women’s League and was deputy secretary-general of the ANC from 2007 to 2012.
Modise’s participation in the struggle against apartheid started with the 1976 student uprising and it was in that year that she slipped over the border to Botswana. She underwent military training for the ANC’s Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK) in Angola. After training, she worked in the camps as a political commissar, later becoming a commander.
In 1978, Modise returned to SA to work underground as an MK operative. She was arrested in 1979, while she was four months pregnant, and sentenced to an eight-year jail term. She was the first woman in SA to be jailed for MK activities. While she was in prison, Modise enrolled for studies and completed her matriculation and a BCom degree in industrial psychology and economics. She was released in 1988.
Modise was born on December 25 1959 in Huhudi township, Vryburg, in the North West province. Her father, Frans Modise, a rail worker, was an ANC activist.
A lover of jazz, Modise sang soprano in the choirs in the MK training camps.
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