Secretary General of the African National Congress (ANC), Ace Magashule, announced Thandi Modise as a candidate that will be nominated by ANC’s caucus to sit as the Speaker in the 6th Parliament’s National Assembly.

The Speaker of the National Assembly presides over the National Assembly of South Africa, the lower house of the Parliament of South Africa.

The 59-year-old Modise was born the youngest of six, in Huhudi, near Vryburg. Over the years, Modise has remained committed to the Huhudi community. She started the African National Congress Women’s League(ANCWL) branch in Huhudi, and is a founder member of the Lesedi Community Clinic.

Ms Modise was Chairperson of the National Council of Provinces during the fifth democratic Parliament. She is currently the Chancellor of the Cape Peninsula University of Technology, a position she has held since September 2017. Ms Modise was first elected to Parliament in 1994 and served as the chairperson of several parliamentary committees, such as, the Portfolio Committee on Defence, the Joint Standing Committee on Defence and the Ad Hoc Committee for ratification of the Convention to Eliminate All Forms of Discrimination against Women.

She has also been a Speaker of the North West Provincial Legislature (from 2004 to 2009) and Premier of the North West (from 2010 to 2014). Ms Modise has a long history of participation in the struggle for freedom from apartheid, starting with the 1976 student uprising. It included exile in Botswana and Angola and military training while in exile, as one of a tiny minority of women undergoing such training for the African National Congress.

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