Kgalema Petrus Motlanthe was the first Chairperson of the African National Congress (ANC), serving in its most important and powerful Gauteng region in 1990, during a period when the ANC was re-establishing itself in the country. In 1992, he was elected Acting General Secretary of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) and was formally elected as its General Secretary at the NUM’s 1994 conference, serving two full terms thereafter.

In 1997, Motlanthe succeeded Cyril Ramaphosa (the current President of the Republic of South Africa) as the Secretary General at the ANC’s conference in Mafikeng. Nelson Mandela, Walter Sisulu, and other senior ANC leaders had persuaded him to accept the position, encouraging the NUM to release him for this purpose. He was re-elected Secretary General of the ANC for a second term at the 2002 Stellenbosch conference, holding the position until the ANC’s Polokwane conference in 2007, when he became the ANC Deputy President.

In May 2008, Motlanthe was elected as an MP, and in July, became Minister in the Presidency. Two months later, in September 2008, he was elected President by the Parliament of South Africa and subsequently served as the Deputy President until 2014.

Motlanthe sits on the Board of The Nelson Mandela Foundation, the Chairperson of the Board of the O.R. Tambo School of Leadership, the Chairperson of the ANC Electoral Committee, and Patron of the Kgalema Motlanthe Foundation.

He joined the Global Commission on Drug Policy in 2019 and is the Founding and current Chair of the (regional) Eastern and Southern Africa Commission on Drugs (ESACD).