Bulelwa Tunyiswa is a South African politician who served as the

Eastern Cape The Eastern Cape ( ; ) is one of the nine provinces of South Africa. Its capital is Bhisho, and its largest city is Gqeberha (Port Elizabeth). Due to its climate and nineteenth-century towns, it is a common location for tourists. It is also kno ...

Member of the Executive Council In South Africa, the Executive Council of a province is the cabinet of the provincial government. The Executive Council consists of the Premier and five to ten other members,'' Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, 1996'', Chapter 6: "P ...

(MEC) for Sports, Recreation, Arts and Culture from May 2018 to May 2019. Before that, she was the Deputy Speaker of the Eastern Cape Provincial Legislature from 2010 to 2018. She lost her position on the Executive Council after the 2019 general election, when she failed to gain re-election to the provincial legislature. A member of the

African National Congress The African National Congress (ANC) is a political party in South Africa. It originated as a liberation movement known for its opposition to apartheid and has governed the country since 1994, when the 1994 South African general election, fir ...

(ANC), Tunyiswa has also been a member of the Central Committee of the

South African Communist Party The South African Communist Party (SACP) is a communist party in South Africa. It was founded on 12 February 1921 as the Communist Party of South Africa (CPSA), and tactically dissolved itself in 1950 in the face of being declared illegal by t ...

(SACP) since 2012.

Early life and career

Tunyiswa was born in 1962 in

Middledrift Middledrift, officially Xesi, is a small town located north-west of East London in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa. It is situated in Raymond Mhlaba Municipality in Amathole District in an area that was formerly part of the Ciskei. T ...

in the former

Cape Province The Province of the Cape of Good Hope (), commonly referred to as the Cape Province () and colloquially as The Cape (), was a province in the Union of South Africa and subsequently the Republic of South Africa. It encompassed the old Cape Co ...

. She completed an undergraduate degree from the

University of the Western Cape The University of the Western Cape (UWC; ) is a Public university, public research university in Bellville, South Africa, Bellville, near Cape Town, South Africa. The university was established in 1959 by the Politics of South Africa, South ...

and a

Master's A master's degree (from Latin ) is a postgraduate academic degree awarded by universities or colleges upon completion of a course of study demonstrating mastery or a high-order overview of a specific field of study or area of professional prac ...

degree in

public administration Public administration, or public policy and administration refers to "the management of public programs", or the "translation of politics into the reality that citizens see every day",Kettl, Donald and James Fessler. 2009. ''The Politics of the ...

at the

University of Fort Hare The University of Fort Hare () is a public university in Alice, Eastern Cape, Alice, Eastern Cape, South Africa. It was a key institution of higher education for Africans from 1916 to 1959 when it offered a Western-style academic education to ...

. A former teacher, she rose to political prominence through the

Congress of South African Trade Unions The Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU or Cosatu) is a trade union federation in South Africa. It was founded in 1985 and is the largest of the country's three main trade union federations, with 21 affiliated trade unions.One Union ...

and the affiliated South African Democratic Teachers' Union, both ANC allies.

Political career

In the 2009 general election, Tunyiswa was elected to an ANC seat in the Eastern Cape Provincial Legislature, ranked 19th on the ANC's provincial party list. The following year, she was elected Deputy Speaker of the provincial legislature, succeeding Neo Moerane; the opposition Democratic Alliance said that her election was the result of "factional politics in the

Tripartite Alliance The Tripartite Alliance is an alliance between the African National Congress (ANC), the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) and the South African Communist Party (SACP). The ANC holds a plurality in the South African parliament, ...

". She was re-elected to the legislature in the 2014 general election, ranked 35th on the ANC's party list, and she continued to serve as Deputy Speaker. On 10 May 2018, Tunyiswa was appointed to the Eastern Cape Executive Council by

Phumulo Masualle Godfrey Phumulo Masualle (born 12 December 1965) is a South African politician from the Eastern Cape who has represented the African National Congress (ANC) in the National Assembly since May 2019. He was Deputy Minister of Public Enterprises fr ...

, the incumbent

Premier of the Eastern Cape The premier of the Eastern Cape is the head of government of the Eastern Cape province of South Africa. The current premier of the Eastern Cape is Oscar Mabuyane, a member of the African National Congress, who was elected in the 2019 South Afric ...

, who made her MEC for Sports, Recreation, Arts and Culture. '' City Press'' reported that the ANC's provincial leadership, then headed by

Oscar Mabuyane Lubabalo Oscar Mabuyane (born 24 February 1974) is a South African politician who has been serving as the seventh Premier of the Eastern Cape since May 2019. He was previously Member of the Executive Council (MEC) for Economic Development, Enviro ...

, had forced Masualle to effect the reshuffle. Tunyiswa served on the Executive Council for only a year: in the 2019 general election, she was ranked 51st on the ANC's party list and failed to gain re-election to the provincial legislature. After her departure from the legislature, Tunyiswa continued to serve on the Central Committee of the SACP: she was elected to her third five-year term on the committee in 2022.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Tunyiswa, Bulelwa African National Congress politicians Living people Members of the Eastern Cape Provincial Legislature 21st-century South African politicians University of Fort Hare alumni University of the Western Cape alumni Members of the South African Communist Party 1962 births People from Raymond Mhlaba Local Municipality