Mxolisi Dukwana

In June 2005, at a party elective conference, Dukwana was elected Provincial Treasurer of the ANC's Free State branch, serving under Ace Magashule, the longstanding ANC Provincial Chairperson.[2] While in that party office, he continued to serve as Speaker of the provincial legislature, until in January 2008 he was returned to the Executive Council by Beatrice Marshoff, then the Premier of the Free State. In a cabinet reshuffle, Marshoff appointed him MEC for Public Safety and Security.[2]

Later that year, in July 2008, Dukwana was re-elected unopposed as ANC Provincial Treasurer.[3] Three months later, in another cabinet reshuffle in October, Marshoff moved him to the Economic Development, Tourism and Environmental Affairs portfolio of the Executive Council.[4] In February 2009, he additionally became acting acting MEC for Education, after the incumbent, Casca Mokitlane, resigned in order to defect from the ANC to the Congress of the People.[5]

Pursuant to the general election in May 2009, Ace Magashule succeeded Marshoff as Premier of the Free State. Dukwana was retained as MEC for Economic Development, Tourism and Environmental Affairs in Magashule's new Executive Council.[6] At this time, Dukwana was viewed as a close political ally of Magashule[7][8] and as Magashule's possible successor.[7][9] However, their relationship had deteriorated by 2012: in February of that year, Magashule fired Dukwana from the Executive Council.[10] The opposition Democratic Alliance alleged that Magashule had made the move because he viewed Dukwana as a political threat, rather than because of his performance as an MEC.[11]

Dukwana's removal from the Executive Council coincided with his final months in his party office as ANC Provincial Treasurer. Instead of seeking re-election to that office, he launched a campaign to oust Magashule from the party chairmanship. By April 2012, the Mail & Guardian identified him as the centre of a provincial ANC faction known as the "Regime Change Group", which lobbied for Dukwana's election as ANC Provincial Chairperson.[12] Other members of the group reportedly included (at least initially)[13] Sibongile Besani, who was the outgoing ANC Provincial Secretary, as well as leaders of the Free State's ANC Youth League.[12] The group argued that Magashule, during his tenure as ANC leader and Premier, had presided over a corrupt administration and promoted his own loyalists over competent politicians.[12]

However, when the ANC's provincial elective conference opened in June 2012, Dukwana announced that he and his supporters would boycott the conference. He alleged that the election had been rigged to favour Magashule.[13] He also suggested that the national leadership of the ANC had conspired with Magashule to manipulate the electoral process in order to ensure that the Free State ANC elected a sympathetic provincial leadership: Dukwana's faction was reported to favour ANC Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe, who would stand for the ANC presidency in December 2012,[12] while Magashule was a strong supporter of incumbent ANC President Jacob Zuma.[13]

Six years after he fired Dukwana, Magashule left provincial government to become national ANC Secretary-General and was succeeded in the Premier's office by Sisi Ntombela. Dukwana remained an outspoken critic of Magashule – indeed, in 2021, the Mail & Guardian called him Magashule's "arch-nemesis".[9] In November 2020, he took part in a protest of ANC members who marched on the party's provincial headquarters to demand that the Special Investigating Unit investigate Magashule's role in alleged corruption and maladministration during his tenure as Premier.[14]

In 2019, while testifying at the Zondo Commission, Dukwana made a number of accusations about Magashule's alleged involvement in state capture under President Zuma's administration.[15][16] Among other things, he alleged that Magashule had accepted bribes from the controversial Gupta family; Dukwana said that Tony Gupta had personally told him about the bribes during a 2011 meeting, also attended by Magashule and Duduzane Zuma, at which Dukwana himself, then MEC for Economic Development, had been offered a bribe in exchange for approving a multimillion-rand Gupta-linked contract.[17] Magashule denied Dukwana's allegations,[7] as did Duduzane Zuma.[18] Dukwana said that he believed that Magashule had sacked him as an MEC in 2012 due to his refusal to cooperate with the Guptas' proposal, as well as because he intended to challenge Magashule for the ANC chairmanship.[19][20]

On 28 September 2021,[21] Dukwana was sworn in again as a Member of the Free State Provincial Legislature; News24 reported that he was expected to be in line for appointment as an MEC under Premier Ntombela.[7] On 1 October 2021, Ntombela announced a cabinet reshuffle in which Dukwana was appointed MEC for Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs.[22]

In the Free State ANC, Magashule was succeeded as Provincial Chairperson by his ally Sam Mashinini. However, in May 2021, the ANC's National Executive Committee – by then under the leadership of Zuma's successor, Cyril Ramaphosa – disbanded Mashinini's provincial leadership corps and appointed an interim task team to take its place until fresh leadership elections could be held. Dukwana was appointed to lead the provincial party as convenor of the interim committee.[9] Dukwana, unlike Magashule and Mashinini, was viewed as an ally of incumbent ANC President Cyril Ramaphosa.[9][23][24] In his new position, Dukwana faced hostile opposition from pro-Zuma and pro-Magashule groups in the provincial party.[25][26]

By mid-2022, Dukwana, along with Thabo Manyoni, was viewed as a frontrunner for election as ANC Provincial Chairperson at the next party conference.[23][24] Dukwana's candidature was endorsed by the provincial African National Congress Women's League Task Team.[27] At the ANC's provincial elective conference held in January 2023 at the Imvelo Safari Lodge in Bloemfontein, he was the only candidate to have received enough nominations from the 242 qualified branches in the province to contest the position. Manyoni, who was expected to also contest the position, withdrew in favour of premier Sisi Ntombela after last-minute negotiations resulted in an agreement that Ntombela was best suited to defeat Dukwana.[28] Dukwana ended up defeating Ntombela in a vote that went 346 votes for Dukwana and 306 for Ntombela. Candidates on Dukwana's slate also made a clean sweep of the Top 5 leadership positions contested at the conference.[29][30]