Nathi Mthethwa

Emmanuel Nkosinathi Mthethwa (23 January 1967 – 30 September 2025) was a South African politician who served as South African Ambassador to France from 2024 until his death in 2025. He represented the African National Congress (ANC) in the National Assembly of South Africa between 2002 and 2023, and he was a cabinet minister between September 2008 and March 2023.

Born in KwaZulu-Natal, Mthethwa rose to prominence in the ANC Youth League and joined the National Assembly in 2002. Pursuant to the ANC's 52nd National Conference in December 2007, he was elected to the ANC's National Executive Committee and National Working Committee, on which he served continuously until December 2022. In the aftermath of the 52nd National Conference, in January 2008, the ANC installed him as Chief Whip of the Majority Party in the National Assembly. He held that position until he ascended to the cabinet in September 2008.

Appointed by President Kgalema Motlanthe as Minister of Safety and Security, he continued in the same office, later renamed Minister of Police, in the first-term cabinet of President Jacob Zuma. During his tenure in the police portfolio from 2008 to 2014, Mthethwa's ministry had played a controversial role in the Marikana massacre and Nkandlagate controversy. He became Minister of Arts and Culture in May 2014 and Minister of Sports, Arts and Culture in May 2019, but he dropped off the ANC's National Executive Committee at the party's 55th National Conference in December 2022 and President Cyril Ramaphosa sacked him from the cabinet in March 2023. He resigned from the National Assembly a week later.

Mthethwa was born on 23 January 1967 in Clermont, a township outside Durban in the former Natal Province. He grew up in the Durban suburb of Klaarwater and in KwaMthethwa on the outskirts of KwaMbonambi.

He completed a diploma in community development at the University of Natal, a certificate in mining engineering at the University of Johannesburg, and a certificate in communications and leadership at Rhodes University.

Mthethwa became active in the students' anti-apartheid movement as a teenager, joining the Klaarwater Youth Organisation in 1982 and serving as its chairperson from 1987 to 1989. He was also a shop steward for the local Food and Allied Workers Union (FAWU), and his trade union activism brought him into contact with the banned African National Congress (ANC); he was recruited to do underground work for the ANC's Operation Vula in 1988 and 1989. After he was detained during the 1989 state of emergency, he was elected as chairperson of the Southern Natal branch of the South African Youth Congress and as chairperson of the Southern Natal Unemployed Workers' Union.

After the ANC was unbanned in 1990, Mthethwa was elected as the inaugural secretary of the party's new branch in Klaarwater. He also served as regional secretary of the Southern Natal branch of the ANC Youth League from 1990 to 1992. In 1994, he was elected to the national executive committee of the ANC Youth League, where he served until 2001 as the league's secretary for organization. From 2001 to 2002, he worked for the mainstream ANC in its national organising team, based at party headquarters at Luthuli House.

Mthethwa joined the South African Parliament in 2002, filling a casual vacancy in an ANC seat in the National Assembly of South Africa. He was elected to a full term in his seat in the April 2004 general election, and on 24 June 2004 he was elected unopposed to succeed Mbulelo Goniwe as chairperson of the Portfolio Committee on Minerals and Energy.