Africa-Press – Eswatini. Republic of South Africa’s Deputy President, David Mabuza, yesterday joined regiments in the ongoing Little Incwala ceremony at Buhleni Royal Residence.
Mabuza and his delegation joined their Majesties, throngs of regiments and tourists who are taking part in the sacred annual national prayer.
This was confirmed by Government Spokesperson, Alpheous Nxumalo, through a press release issued yesterday.
“The deputy president is not visiting in his capacity as a government official, but purely as a Liswati (son of the soil) here to participate in the ongoing sacred Incwala ceremony and pay homage to His Majesty King Mswati III,” clarified Nxumalo.
Mabuza is accompanied by chiefs and princes based in the Mpumalanga Province of South Africa.
He has been the deputy president of the African National Congress (ANC) from December 2017 and was previously the premier of Mpumalanga from 2009 to 2018, throughout the presidency of his former political ally, Jacob Zuma.
He is a native of rural Mpumalanga and a teacher by profession.
Mabuza’s initial engagement in politics was through the Black Consciousness movement, while he was a student, and then through teachers’ unions.
He was chairperson of the South African Democratic Teachers Union, an affiliate of the influential Congress of South African Trade Unions, from 1988 to 1991.
After the end of apartheid in 1994, he joined the Mpumalanga provincial legislature as an ANC representative and took up a series of ministerial posts in the Mpumalanga executive council.
He was elected to the ANC national executive committee for the first time in 2007 and was ANC provincial chairperson in Mpumalanga from 2008 to 2017, throughout his premiership.
Mabuza’s politics have been described as populist.
Through a rigorous recruitment drive, he increased the size and influence of the Mpumalanga branch of the ANC and, with Ace Magashule and Supra Mahumapelo, was part of the so-called Premier League that helped engineer the outcome of the ANC’s 54th National Conference.
At the conference, held in December 2017, Mabuza was elected deputy president of the ANC, serving under Cyril Ramaphosa.
When Ramaphosa ascended to the national presidency after Zuma’s resignation in February 2018, he appointed Mabuza to succeed him as deputy president.
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