Mpapa Kanyane

Kanyane is from Zebediela in present-day Limpopo. He has two Bachelor's degrees and a Master of Education from the University of the North.^[1] He became politically active in his youth through the anti-apartheid movement and, while teaching at a high school in Mahwelereng, he was a founding member of the Northern Transvaal Teachers Union. He joined the ANC-affiliated South African Democratic Teachers Union when it was founded in 1990.^[1]

In later years, Kanyane worked in policy research – at the South African Committee for Higher Education, at the Community Agency for Social Enquiry, and as research director at the American Bureau of Justice Assistance – and then as head of communications for the business arm of the Police and Prisons Civil Rights Union, an affiliate of the Congress of South African Trade Unions.^[1]

Kanyane attained political prominence as a regional leader of the SACP on the East Rand.^[1] In 2012, he was elected as First Deputy Secretary of the SACP's Gauteng provincial branch, serving under Provincial Secretary Jacob Mamabolo.^[2] He initially held the office full-time,^[1] but in 2014 he was additionally elected to the Gauteng Provincial Legislature, ranked 26th on the ANC's provincial party list.^[3] He was re-elected to a third term in his SACP office in 2018,^[2] and he was re-elected to his legislative seat in the 2019 general election, ranked 37th on the ANC's party list.^[3]

He remained in office as SACP Deputy Provincial Secretary as of November 2022.^[4] In February 2023, he was appointed acting chairperson of the provincial legislature's Portfolio Committee on Finance after the incumbent chairperson, Parks Tau, resigned from the legislature.^[5]