Luyolo Mphithi

From the University of the Witwatersrand, Mphithi has a Bachelor of Arts degree in political science, international relations and law as well as a joint honour's degree in international relations and political science. He is currently pursuing his master's degree in Public Administration at the same university.[1]

Additionally, Mphithi has a certificate in political formations and structures from the International Academy of Leadership (IAF) in Gummersbach, Germany. He also holds a certificate in research Methodology from Bowdoin College and a certificate in public management from Syracuse University in the United States.[1]

Mphithi was employed by the Mpumalanga Provincial Legislature as a research and communication officer, responsible for researching the fields of cooperative governance and traditional affairs, human settlements, public works, roads and transport, as well as public safety, security and liaison.[1]

He was also employed as a consultant at various institutions, such the Executive Research Associates, the Hanns Seidel Foundation, the University of the Witwatersrand, and the Department of International Relations and Cooperation.[1]

Mphithi served as a Democratic Alliance councillor in the City of Johannesburg for the community of Meadowlands in Soweto. During his time on the city council, he was a member of the committees on public safety and environment, infrastructure and services.[1] He also served as the director and head of department of political administration for the municipality.[1]

Mphithi is a DA's Young Leaders Programme graduate and has held multiple roles in the DA. While a student at the University of Witwatersrand, he was head of the university's Democratic Alliance Student Organisation branch and was also the Gauteng DA Youth deputy chair in 2012.[1] He serves as a member of the party's Federal Council for the Johannesburg region. Additionally, he serves as treasurer for the African Liberal Youth (ALY). He represented the organisation at the African Liberal Network's 2017 conference in Nairobi, Kenya.[1]

At the DA's conference in April 2018, Mphithi was elected federal leader of the DA Youth, succeeding Yusuf Cassim.[2]

Mphithi stood as a DA parliamentary candidate on the national list in the 2019 national elections, and was subsequently elected to the National Assembly and sworn in on 22 May 2019.[3][4] On 5 June, Mphithi was appointed Shadow Minister of Women, Youth and Persons with Disabilities in the Presidency by DA leader, Mmusi Maimane, in his second shadow cabinet.[5]

Maimane resigned as DA leader in October 2019 and John Steenhuisen was voted in as his interim successor in November.[6] In May 2020, the DA announced that it would hold its Federal Congress to elect new leadership on 31 October to 1 November. Mphithi was against the proposal and later supported KwaZulu-Natal MPL Mbali Ntuli's bid for DA leader.[7] Steenhuisen was elected leader for a full term in a landslide.[8] He announced his shadow cabinet in December and kept Mphithi as Shadow Minister of Women, Youth and Persons with Disabilities in the Presidency.[9]

Mphithi was awarded the Ernest Oppenheimer Memorial Scholarship, the Mandela Rhodes Scholarship, Mellon-Mays Undergraduate Fellowship, as well as the Mandela Washington Fellowship of the Young African Leaders Initiative.[1]

In 2017, he was cited by the Mail & Guardian as one of "Top 200 Young South Africans" for his work in politics.[1] In the same year, Avance Media ranked him as one of the 100 most influential young South Africans in politics.[1]

In January 2019, months before the May 2019 general election, Mphithi tweeted a single photo of the Grade R classroom of the Schweizer-Reneke primary school, saying that the school had segregated children of different races.[10] The picture went viral and the school later clarified that the children were not separated due to race.[11] However, the North West MEC for Education, Sello Lehari, suspended the teacher, Elana Barkhuizen.[11] Barkhuizen then approached the trade union Solidarity, and they approached the labour court, which overturned her suspension in February.[12]

Solidarity CEO Dirk Hermann wrote a letter to Maimane, in which he said that Mphithi "sowed racial division" and that he should apologise to Barkhuizen and the children, whose identities he exposed.[10] Mphithi did not apologise and Maimane did not sanction him. This response from the DA resulted in the party losing large amounts of Afrikaner votes at the May election.[13] In November, DA Federal Chairperson, Refiloe Nt'sekhe, announced that the party would be investigating the incident.[14] In March 2020, Nt'sekhe said that the report had been presented to the party's Federal Executive (FedEx) and that the FedEx had resolved to refer the report to the party's Federal Legal Commission to determine if disciplinary charges should be laid.[15]

• Luyolo Mphithi at People's Assembly
• Mr Luyolo Mphithi at Parliament of South Africa