Paul Mashatile

Paul Shipokosa Mashatile (born 21 October 1961) is a South African politician who is the 9th and current deputy president of South Africa. He became deputy president of the governing African National Congress (ANC) in December 2022. Before his election to that position, he was ANC treasurer-general from December 2017 and acting ANC secretary-general from January 2022. Formerly an anti-apartheid activist in the United Democratic Front, Mashatile was a member of President Jacob Zuma's first cabinet, serving as Minister of Arts and Culture from 2010 to 2014. Before that, he was briefly premier of Gauteng province from 2008 to 2009. Between 1996 and 2008, and later between 2014 and 2018, he held several ministerial portfolios in the Gauteng provincial government. He remains especially influential in Gauteng, his home province, where he was also ANC Provincial Chairperson between 2007 and 2017. Early life and activism Mashatile was born on 21 October 1961 in Gerhardsville, in what is now the municipality of Tshwane, in the Gauteng province. His mother was Marriam Nomvula Mashatile (b. 1937–1938, d. 2020). She was a domestic worker. Mashatile's father was a lay priest. While a student, Mashatile began his political career as an anti-apartheid activist in Alexandra, Gauteng, alongside Obed Bapala and others. He was a member of the Congress of South African Students and co-founded the Alexandra Youth Congress, becoming the latter's inaugural president in 1983. In the same year, he represented the Alexandra Youth Congress at the launch of the United Democratic Front (UDF) in Cape Town, and two years later he succeeded Valli Moosa as UDF regional secretary for Southern Transvaal, a position which he held until the UDF was dissolved in 1991. Later in 1985, under the prevailing state of emergency, he was arrested for his political activism, and he was detained without trial until 1989.