Hlomane Chauke

Hlomane Patrick Chauke is a South African politician who represented the African National Congress (ANC) in the National Assembly from 1994 to 2010 and later from 2016 to 2019. In the interim, he served in the North West Provincial Legislature from 2010 to 2014, including as the North West's Member of the Executive Council (MEC) for Sports, Arts and Culture from November 2010 to May 2012 under Premier Thandi Modise. He failed to gain re-election to the National Assembly in the 2019 general election.

Early life and activism Chauke grew up in Swartruggens in present-day North West province and he was active in anti-apartheid activism in Soweto in the 1980s. In 1990, after the ANC was unbanned by the apartheid government, he formally joined the ANC through its new branch in Jabavu, Soweto. He also joined the South African Communist Party.

North West Legislature: 2010–2014 In 2010, the ANC asked Chauke to leave Parliament to serve in the North West as deputy campaigns coordinator ahead of the 2011 local elections. He remained in that office until 3 May 2012, when, in a reshuffle by Modise, he was fired and replaced by Tebogo Modise. After his dismissal from the Executive Council, he remained in his seat in the provincial legislature and chaired the legislature's Standing Committee on Public Accounts.

Return to the National Assembly: 2016–2019 In the 2014 general election, Chauke was ranked 24th on the ANC's provincial party list and therefore narrowly missed election to one of the 23 seats won by the ANC in the provincial legislature. However, in the aftermath of the election, Thandi Modise declined to take up her seat in the provincial legislature, which in principle should have triggered Chauke's induction, since he was the next-ranked individual on the ANC's list. When Ontlametse Mochware was sworn in instead, in a highly irregular procedure, sources told the media that ANC officials had purposefully attempted to bypass electoral legislation in order to pre-empt Chauke's return; Chauke's activities in the public accounts portfolio had apparently made him unpopular with some officials.

Midway through the legislative term, in early 2016, Chauke was sworn in to fill a casual vacancy in the National Assembly. In the 2019 general election, Chauke was ranked 154th on the ANC's national list and failed to gain re-election to his legislative seat.