Daluxolo Christopher Mpofu (Dali Mpofu), (born 17 January 1962) is a South African lawyer, politician, and former businessman who was the National Chairperson of the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) from 2014 to 2019. He served on the Judicial Service Commission from 2017 to 2022 and formerly was chief executive officer of the South African Broadcasting Corporation from 2005 to 2009.
Mpofu was admitted as an advocate of the High Court in 1993 and was awarded senior counsel status in 2014. He is known for taking on politically sensitive cases: among other clients, he has represented striking mineworkers at the Marikana Commission, Tom Moyane at the Zondo Commission, and Busisiwe Mkhwebane at the Section 194 Enquiry; since 2021, he has been lead counsel for former President Jacob Zuma in his corruption trial. Formerly a longstanding member of the African National Congress, Mpofu defected to the EFF in 2013.
Early life and activism Mpofu was born in 1962 in Duncan Village outside East London in the former Cape Province. His mother, Nosebenzile Doris, was a domestic worker. In his account, he became active in the anti-apartheid movement around the time of the 1976 Soweto uprising and subsequently became a "radical". At the age of 17, he was detained for his political activities – then as a member of the Congress of South African Students – and was charged with sabotage and arson. After his acquittal in April 1981, he took up work as a spot-welder at a Mercedes-Benz factory, where he organised on behalf of the South African Allied Workers' Union. In addition, he later said that he had joined the African National Congress (ANC) underground in 1980.
By 1986, Mpofu was a student at the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits), where he was president of the Congress-aligned Black Students' Society – according to him, he won the position in a contest against Black Consciousness activist Xolela Mangcu. In 1986 he was detained without trial at John Vorster Square. In 1987, Mpofu worked in Kathleen Satchwell's attorney offices, and he completed his BProc at Wits in 1988.
Early legal career
Relationship with Winnie Mandela Mpofu worked for a year in the Social Welfare Department of the ANC, which was unbanned by the apartheid government in 1990. In that capacity he served under Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, the ANC's head of social welfare. In addition, along with George Bizos and others, he was on the legal team that represented Madikizela-Mandela when she was prosecuted for her alleged involvement in the murder of Stompie Seipei. In 1992 he was elected as publicity secretary for the Johannesburg branch of the ANC Youth League.
By 1991, City Press had reported on rumours that Madikizela-Mandela had an affair with Mpofu while her husband, political prisoner Nelson Mandela, was on Robben Island. It was also widely rumoured that the affair continued after Mandela's release. In May 1992, both Mpofu and Madikizela-Mandela were sacked from their ANC positions amid reports that the party was investigating fraud charges against them; an ANC document leaked to the press said that Madikizela-Mandela was accused of using "ANC money to live it up with her alleged lover, lawyer Dali Mpofu". Mpofu instituted wrongful dismissal charges against the ANC; both he and Madikizela-Mandela denied the affair and fraud allegations.
In June 1992, national and international media printed a letter that Madikizela-Mandela had apparently written to Mpofu in March 1992; in the letter, she alluded heavily to their affair and moreover appeared to admit that she had given Mpofu about R160,000 (then equivalent to roughly £30,000) from the ANC's coffers. Paul Erasmus of the South African Police later said that the police's Security Branch had leaked rumours of the affair to the media as part of a so-called Stratcom operation intended to discredit Madikizela-Mandela and the ANC. Mpofu did not ultimately pursue his wrongful dismissal lawsuit.
Advocate of the High Court Also in 1992, Mpofu completed an LLB at Wits, and the following year he was admitted as an advocate of the High Court of South Africa and as a member of the Johannesburg Bar. He practiced law at the Department of Justice and, from 1996 to 1997, as a trainee international advocacy teacher at Gray's Inn in London. After a brief stint as an acting judge in the Labour Court of South Africa in 2000, he worked as executive director for corporate affairs at Altron Group, an ICT company, from 2000 to 2005. He also acquired a number of business interests during that period, including through black economic empowerment deals.
CEO of SABC: 2005–2009 In June 2005, Mpofu was appointed chief executive officer of the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC), South Africa's public broadcaster. Until 2008, he was simultaneously as chairman of the board at Boxing South Africa; as of 2009, he also retained a directorship at Deutsche Securities South Africa and shares in the Elephant Consortium, which had a 6.7% stake in Telkom.
Early in his tenure at the SABC, in September 2007, Mpofu controversially announced that the SABC would sever ties with the South African National Editors' Forum over the forum's response to a series of critical reports about Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang. In addition, Business Day later pointed out that, during Mpofu's tenure, the SABC required several large bail-outs from the central government.
However, the bulk of Mpofu's tenure was dominated by his battles with the SABC board and with Snuki Zikalala, the SABC's head of news and current affairs. His term coincided with the prologue to and aftermath of the ANC's 52nd National Conference, which removed President Thabo Mbeki from the ANC presidency and replaced him with Jacob Zuma. The SABC was thought to be caught up in the ANC's internal factional politics. As early as October 2006, there were media reports that Mpofu and Zikalala had clashed after Zikalala sought to restrict coverage that he thought was critical of Mbeki. In April 2008, Mpofu said publicly that the SABC was facing, and resisting, "political pressure", though he did not say from whom.
Suspensions: 2008 On 6 May, Mpofu suspended Zikalala pending the outcome of a disciplinary inquiry. The next day, the SABC board announced that it viewed Zikalala's suspension as invalid and that it had, in turn, suspended Mpofu pending the outcome of a disciplinary inquiry. Mpofu said that he had suspended Zikalala for leaking SABC documents to other media houses, but media reports suggested that Mpofu had attempted to suspend Zikalala precisely because he suspected that the board intended to suspend him and appoint Zikalala in his place. The board accused Mpofu of "refusal and/or failure to abide and implement decisions of the board".
Less than a fortnight later, the Johannesburg High Court set aside Mpofu's suspension, ruling that the board's decision was invalid because Mpofu had been deliberately excluded from participating in the meeting where the decision was taken. The board was denied leave to appeal the judgement but in mid-June suspended Mpofu for a second time. On that occasion, the board charged him with several internal disciplinary offences, arising primarily from allegations of financial mismanagement but also from allegations that he had ignored or undermined the board's authority. Mpofu said that the charges were "kind of rubbish, really".
Dismissal: 2009 Mpofu was dismissed in January 2009. He initially challenged his dismissal in the Labour Court, but in August 2009, he agreed to withdraw all legal action in exchange for an exit package of R14.1 million. Amid reports that the SABC was in serious financial trouble, Mpofu said that he took "full responsibility for all the decisions I made" at the SABC but argued that he had not really worked at the SABC since March 2008, when his difficulties with the board had begun to predominate. He said:I do not think there was anything I did or didn’t do because the board pounced on me barely two months after they had arrived. It is unfortunate that this mess they created has cost this much. It’s a lesson for all of us in the future... [The financial crisis] was not my mess. I had nothing to do with any of that... I believe that if the board had not changed we wouldn’t have had any of this.He was replaced at the SABC by Solly Mokoetle and joked that, after his dismissal, he intended to become a "full-time house husband". In June 2010, there were reports – denied by Mpofu – that he was on the shortlist for appointment as chief executive officer at Telkom.
Later legal practice
Marikana Commission: 2012–2014 Mpofu returned to the public eye in 2011 and 2012, when he represented three ANC Youth League leaders – Julius Malema, Sindiso Magaqa, and Floyd Shivambu – in the internal ANC disciplinary proceedings that ultimately led to Malema's expulsion from the party. According to the Mail & Guardian, it was Malema who, later in 2012, recruited Mpofu to represent the mineworkers who had been arrested in the aftermath of the Marikana massacre. Mpofu represented the mineworkers at the Marikana Commission of Inquiry, which ran from 2012 to 2014 under the chairmanship of Ian Farlam. Controversially, he refused to work pro bono and withdrew from proceedings briefly between June and October 2013, during which time he lodged a successful court application to have the state cover the mineworkers' legal fees.
Towards the end of the Marikana Commission hearings, in August 2014, the media reported that Mpofu had applied for senior counsel (silk) status in the High Court in 2012 but that President Jacob Zuma had not yet approved the award. While under cross-examination by Mpofu, Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa alluded to a "friendly" conversation he had with Mpofu the day before, in which he said Mpofu had asked him to put in a good word with Zuma to expedite the process. Mpofu angrily denied having asked for Ramaphosa's assistance. He was awarded silk status the following month.
Nugent Commission and Zondo Commission: 2018–2021 Mpofu represented Tom Moyane, the suspended Commissioner of the South African Revenue Service (SARS), at the Nugent Commission, which was held in 2018 to investigate allegations of maladministration at SARS during Moyane's tenure. In July 2018, he entered into a highly public spat with Pierre de Vos, a constitutional law expert at the University of Cape Town, who had written a blog which criticised Moyane's submissions to the commission and implied that Mpofu had behaved unethically in advancing those submissions on Moyane's behalf. Mpofu posted a series of angry ripostes on Twitter, alleging that de Vos's piece was "defamatory, insulting & possibly racist" and threatening to sue him if he did not delete it. De Vos refused.
Mpofu also represented Moyane at the State Capture Commission, which investigated allegations that Moyane had presided over state capture at SARS. In March 2021, Mpofu cross-examined Minister Pravin Gordhan on Moyane's behalf and shortly afterwards entered into an angry exchange with Gordhan and his lawyer, Michelle le Roux, in which he said that "Miss le Roux must shut up when I am speaking" and then, after Gordhan attempted to interject, told Gordhan, "you shut up". The chairman of the commission, Deputy Chief Justice Raymond Zondo, lamented Mpofu's behaviour at length, calling it "unacceptable". In March 2022, the Johannesburg Society of Advocates (the Johannesburg Bar) ruled that Mpofu had breached the bar's ethical code, though a separate inquiry by the national Legal Practice Council cleared him on an unprofessional conduct charge in June.
Jacob Zuma criminal charges: 2021–present