Carl Niehaus | |
|---|---|
| Member of the National Assembly | |
| Assumed office 14 June 2024 | |
| In office 1994–1996 | |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Carl Gerhardus Niehaus 25 December 1959 Zeerust, Western Transvaal Union of South Africa |
| Political party | Economic Freedom Fighters (since 2023) |
| Other political affiliations | African Radical Economic Transformation Alliance (2023) African National Congress (1980–2022) |
| Spouse(s) |
Noluthando Mdluli (m. 2022)Jansie Lourens
(m. 1986; div. 2002) |
| Alma mater | University of South Africa |
Carl Gerhardus Niehaus (born 25 December 1959) is a South African politician who represents the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) in the National Assembly of South Africa. A former national spokesperson of the African National Congress (ANC), he was expelled from that party for misconduct in December 2022. He joined the EFF in December 2023 and was elected to the National Assembly in May 2024.
Born to an Afrikaner family in the Western Transvaal, Niehaus became involved in anti-apartheid activism as a student, joining the ANC underground in 1980. Between November 1983 and March 1991, he was imprisoned on treason charges related to his activism, particularly an ANC plot to sabotage the Johannesburg Gas Works.
Upon his release from prison, he became an influential figure in the ANC: after a stint as the party's spokesperson during the post-apartheid transition, he served as a Member of the National Assembly from 1994 to 1996, as South African Ambassador to the Netherlands from 1996 to 2000, and as a member of the ANC National Executive Committee from 1994 to 1997. He returned to the ANC media office as the party's national spokesperson in November 2008. However, in February 2009, he resigned from that office and confessed to a string of improprieties that he had committed due to his personal financial problems.
He returned to frontline politics in 2017 as the national spokesperson of the UMkhonto we Sizwe Military Veterans' Association. From 2019, he was also employed at Luthuli House as a staffer in the office of ANC secretary-general Ace Magashule. During this period, he frequently clashed with the ANC leadership over his outspoken support of former President Jacob Zuma and the Zuma-aligned programme of radical economic transformation (RET). His pro-Zuma public statements resulted in the suspension of his ANC membership in July 2021 and, ultimately, his expulsion from the party in December 2022. In the aftermath, he established his own short-lived political platforms – the Radical Economic Transformation Movement (RETMO) and African Radical Economic Transformation Alliance (ARETA) – before joining the EFF in December 2023.