Baleka Mbete

Originally trained as a teacher, Speaker Mbete has a long career as activist and politician. She has been a member of the South African Parliament since South Africa’s first democratic elections in 1994. In April 2004, she was elected as Speaker of the National Assembly, prior to which she had been Deputy Speaker. Since 1997, she has been a member of the ANC National Executive Committee.

While in exile, Ms. Mbete served the ANC in many different functions: she worked in the ANC Department of Information and Publicity (Radio Freedom) in Dar-es-Salaam as well as in underground political structures in Gabarone, Botswana in the mid 1980s. From 1986 to 1987, she served in the ANC Regional Women's Committee and Regional Political Committee in Harare, Zimbabwe and later on in Zambia. Back in South Africa, she was a member of the Interim Leadership Core and member of the Task Force of the ANC Women's League. From 1991 to 1993, she served as Secretary General of the ANC Women's League.

She was deeply involved in the process of drafting South Africa’s interim and final Constitutions as a member of the Panel of Chairpersons of Multi-Party Negotiating Process and as a member of the Constitutional Committee of the Constitutional Assembly. In 1995, she became a member of the Presidential Panel on Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

Her relationship with the United Nations includes her membership on UNESCO’s International Advisory Panel in 1998 and on UNIFEM’s panel of experts to assist in engendering the Burundi Peace Process (June/July 2000)

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