Dan Habedi

Daniel Ntjammu Habedi (born 22 March 1952) is a South African politician and former anti-apartheid activist. He is a former secretary-general of the Azanian People's Organisation and represented the party in the National Assembly from April to June 2004; his tenure was cut short by the Electoral Court's finding that the seat had been allocated to the wrong party.

During apartheid, Habedi was a teacher in Soweto and an activist in the Black Consciousness movement.

Early life and activism Habedi was born on 22 March 1952 in Alexandra, a township outside Johannesburg in the former Transvaal. He was one of seven siblings and his father, Herman Habedi, was a labourer. Before matriculating in Pretoria in 1970, Habedi attended school in Hammanskraal, where he became interested in anti-apartheid politics after hearing speeches by Black Consciousness leaders, Steve Biko and Barney Pityana among them. However, at the time of Habedi's swearing in, AZAPO was engaged in an electoral dispute with the African Christian Democratic Party (ACDP), which claimed that the seat had been allocated to AZAPO erroneously. Habedi said that his party would uphold the rule of law and that he would cede the seat if a court agreed with the ACDP's argument.

The dispute arose from an error in vote-counting procedures in Khayelitsha, which had resulted in the Electoral Commission mistakenly allocating an additional 2,666 votes to the AZAPO, when in fact those votes belonged to the majority African National Congress (ANC). AZAPO argued that it was legally entitled to the second seat because the error had not been picked up until the election results were declared and the seat allocation finalised.

Personal life As of 1978, Habedi was married to Kefilwe, a teacher, with whom he had four children.