Thabo Makunyane
Thabo Lucas Makunyane was a South African politician and former anti-apartheid activist. He was the first mayor of Limpopo's Polokwane Local Municipality from 2000 to 2010. He also served in the National Assembly from 1999 to 2000 and in the National Council of Provinces from 2012 to 2014.
Makunyane rose to prominence in the students' movement of the 1970s, which led him to join the African National Congress underground and become a founding member of the Congress of South African Students. With COSAS president Ephraim Mogale, he was imprisoned on Robben Island from 1979 to 1985. Upon his release, Makunyane became vice-chairperson of the Northern Transvaal branch of the United Democratic Front, in which capacity he suffered another lengthy detention from 1986 to 1989.
Early life and activism
Born on 25 October 1953, Makunyane became active in anti-apartheid politics in the early 1970s through the Black Consciousness-aligned South African Students Organisation. He went on to join the underground of the ANC, which was outlawed at the time; he later said that he had joined the party in 1973. In 1979, while studying law at Turfloop, he was involved in founding the ANC-aligned COSAS with Ephraim Mogale. Later in 1979, he and Mogale were arrested in Venda; they were convicted of political offences and sentenced to five years' imprisonment, which they served on Robben Island.Upon his release in 1985, Makunyane joined the UDF in the Northern Transvaal, while subsisting on business interests he acquired in Sekhukhuneland and Seshego. After Peter Nchabeleng died in police detention in 1986, Louis Mnguni succeeded Nchabeleng as chairperson of the UDF's Northern Transvaal branch, and Makunyane in turn succeeded Mnguni as vice-chairperson. During the state of emergency that began later that year, both Mnguni and Makunyane were detained without trial for three years. After his release in 1989, Makunyane once more resumed his activism, becoming the key coordinator of the ANC underground in the Pietersburg area.