Maggie Govender

Magesvari "Maggie" Govender is a South African politician who represents the African National Congress (ANC) in the KwaZulu-Natal Provincial Legislature. A former anti-apartheid activist, she was KwaZulu-Natal's Member of the Executive Council (MEC) for Human Settlements and Public Works between 2009 and 2011 and she has served as an ordinary Member of the Provincial Legislature since leaving that office.

Early life and activism Govender was born in Durban in present-day KwaZulu-Natal (then Natal province) and grew up in Durban Central. When she was eleven years old, her family was forcibly resettled to Chatsworth, a township designated for Indians under the apartheid-era Group Areas Act. She matriculated at Chatsworth Secondary School and enrolled in a medical degree at the University of Durban-Westville. In her second year at the university, she transferred to a humanities degree and also became politically active through the student representative council, the Natal Indian Congress, and the Chatsworth Housing Action Committee. She later joined the United Democratic Front. ''' She held that office until November 2011, when Mkhize announced a cabinet reshuffle in which she was sacked and replaced by Ravi Pillay.

However, she remained an ordinary Member of the Provincial Legislature, She was co-opted onto the Provincial Executive Committee of the ANC's KwaZulu-Natal branch in 2018 but was not re-elected in 2022.

Personal life Govender was married to Pathsarvasvaran Samotharan "Charm" Govender (9 April 1961 – 22 March 2021), whom she met as a student activist at the University of Durban-Westville and who worked at the South African Revenue Service after the end of apartheid. They married in 1984 and had two sons, Megalen and Yeshelen, born in the 1980s.