Dickson Masemola

Namane Dickson Masemola (born 11 January 1968) is a South African politician who currently serves as Deputy Minister for the Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs in the Government of National Unity (GNU) since June 2024. He has previously served as a Delegate to the National Council of Provinces since October 2022. Between 2009 and 2022, he was a Member of the Provincial Legislature in the Limpopo provincial government, representing the African National Congress (ANC), and held a variety of positions in the Limpopo Executive Council.

Masemola began his political career as Executive Mayor of his hometown, Sekhukhune District Municipality, from 2001 to 2009. From 2008 to 2013 he served under Cassel Mathale as Deputy Provincial Chairperson of the ANC in Limpopo. Simultaneously, he served in Mathale's government as Member of the Executive Council (MEC) for Education. Under Mathale's successor, incumbent Premier Stan Mathabatha, Masemola was MEC for Public Works (2013–2014); MEC for Transport (2019–2020); MEC for Public Works, Roads and Infrastructure (2020–2022); and MEC for Social Development (2022).

In June 2022, Masemola campaigned unsuccessfully to depose Mathabatha as ANC Provincial Chairperson. Several months later, he was transferred to his current seat in the national Parliament.

Early life and education Masemola was born in 1967 or 1968 in Ga-Marishane in the Sekhukhune region of what is now South Africa's Limpopo province. In his youth he was active in anti-apartheid student politics, including through the South African Students Congress and local organisations affiliated to the South African Youth Congress. He later joined the African National Congress (ANC) and volunteered in the party's election campaign during South Africa's first democratic elections in 1994. and served as the Executive Mayor of Sekhukhune District Municipality from 2001 to 2009. According to the Independent Online, the municipality received poor audit outcomes during Masemola's tenure, including six consecutive disclaimers from 2004 to 2009. In this capacity he deputised Cassel Mathale.

In the April 2009 general election, Masemola was reelected to the provincial legislature and Mathale appointed him MEC for Education. In 2012, the Mail & Guardian alleged that he had improperly influenced the department's procurement processes, and in the same year he was blamed for the so-called Limpopo textbook crisis, which left thousands of Limpopo schoolchildren without school books and which the Mail & Guardian described as "arguably the largest, longest and most acutely embarrassing education debacle since 1994".

While Education MEC, Masemola was reelected ANC Deputy Provincial Chairperson in December 2011 on a slate aligned to Mathale, who was also re-elected. However, in subsequent months, he fell out with Mathale and with Mathale's close ally Julius Malema: Masemola remained a staunch and vocal ally of President Jacob Zuma, while Mathale, Malema, and the rest of the ANC Limpopo Provincial Executive Committee had turned against Zuma and publicly called for him to be removed as ANC President at the ANC's upcoming national elective conference. In March 2013, shortly after Zuma won re-election, the ANC National Executive Committee under Zuma announced that it had disbanded the entire Limpopo Provincial Executive Committee "for displaying totally un-ANC behaviour and institutionalised factional conduct". This decision prematurely ended Masemola's term as ANC Deputy Provincial Chairperson. However, it was fairly widely anticipated that Zuma would fire Mathale as Premier and appoint Masemola to replace him. As the Limpopo ANC prepared to elect a new provincial party leadership, Masemola launched an abortive challenge to Mathabatha's bid to be elected ANC Provincial Chairperson; he withdrew his candidacy at the elective conference, held in February 2014, and Mathabatha secured the post.

In the 2014 general election, Masemola was reelected to a second full term in the Limpopo provincial legislature, having been ranked ninth on the ANC's provincial party list. However, Mathabatha did not reappoint him to the Executive Council, reportedly because he was displeased that Masemola had challenged him in the ANC's internal elections the previous year. At the Limpopo ANC's next elective conference in June 2018, Mathabatha was re-elected unopposed as Provincial Chairperson, but Masemola was elected as an ordinary member of the Provincial Executive Committee. Jacques Smalle, the provincial leader of the opposition DA, said that Masemola's appointment "had me scratching my head". At that time Masemola was also the chairperson of the board at MINTEK, a mining research company. However, at the Limpopo ANC's next elective conference in March 2022, Mathabatha did run for a third term and Masemola, despite initially standing only for election as Deputy Provincial Chairperson, ran against him on the ballot. Masemola's campaign emphasised what the Daily Maverick called a "strong anti-corruption stance" and he, like Mathabatha, endorsed incumbent ANC President Cyril Ramaphosa. Masemola's candidacy was supported by the ANC's Norman Mashabane region (in Mopani), the largest in Limpopo, However, in June, Mathabatha moved Masemola to the Social Development portfolio, which was viewed as a demotion. Then, on 6 October, Mathabatha fired Masemola from the Executive Council; the ANC announced that Masemola would be "re-deployed" to the national Parliament, where he was sworn in as a Member of the National Council of Provinces. Ahead of the ANC's 55th National Conference in December 2022, Masemola was nominated to stand for election to the ANC's 80-member National Executive Committee; he was nominated by 248 local party branches and was therefore the 98th most popular candidate.