David Mabuza

David Mabuza
Mabuza in August 2022
8th Deputy President of South Africa
In office
27 February 2018 – 28 February 2023
PresidentCyril Ramaphosa
Preceded byCyril Ramaphosa
Succeeded byPaul Mashatile
10th Deputy President of the African National Congress
In office
18 December 2017 – 19 December 2022
PresidentCyril Ramaphosa
Preceded byCyril Ramaphosa
Succeeded byPaul Mashatile
Member of the National Assembly
In office
26 February 2018 – 28 February 2023
Preceded byJames Skosana
Succeeded byHumphrey Mmemezi
ConstituencyMpumalanga
4th Premier of Mpumalanga
In office
6 May 2009 – 26 February 2018
Preceded byThabang Makwetla
Succeeded byRefilwe Mtsweni-Tsipane
Provincial Chairperson of the African National Congress in Mpumalanga
In office
August 2008 – 2015
Deputy
Preceded byThabang Makwetla
Succeeded byMandla Ndlovu
Member of the Mpumalanga Provincial Legislature
In office
May 1994 – 26 February 2018
Personal details
Born
David Dabede Mabuza

(1960-08-25) 25 August 1960 (age 64)
Phola, South Africa
Political partyAfrican National Congress
Spouses
  • Ruth Funi Silinda
    (divorced)
  • Nonhlanhla Patience Mnisi
Alma materUniversity of South Africa
Occupation
  • Politician
  • teacher
  • philanthropist
  • activist

David Dabede Mabuza (born 25 August 1960) is a South African politician who served as deputy president of South Africa from February 2018 to February 2023. He was the deputy president of the African National Congress (ANC) from December 2017 to December 2022 and was previously the premier of Mpumalanga from 2009 to 2018, throughout the presidency of his former political ally Jacob Zuma. Mabuza served as a Member of Parliament from 2018 until his resignation in 2023.

A native of rural Mpumalanga and a teacher by training, 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 national Deputy President.