President Motlanthe Stamp issue date: 30 January 2009 In keeping with the norm to issue a commemorative stamp for the new President of the country, the South African Post Office issued this stamp, designed by Thea Clemons on 30 January 2009. The photograph of President Motlanthe was supplied by Government Communications (GCIS). Kgalema Motlanthe was born on 19 July 1949 in Alexandra township, Johannesburg to a working class family. Most of his childhood was spent in Alexandra and much of his adult life in Meadowlands, Soweto. In the 1970s, while working for the Johannesburg City Council, he joined Umkhonto we Sizwe. He formed part of a unit tasked with recruiting comrades for military training. On 14 April 1976 he was arrested and detentained for 11 months at John Vorster Square in Johannesburg. In 1977 he was found guilty of three charges under Terrorism Act and sentenced to an effective 10 years imprisonment on Robben Island. He was released in 1987 and worked for the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) in charge of education. Among other things, he was involved in training workers to form shop steward committees. In 1992 he was elected NUM General Secretary. When the ANC was unbanned in 1990, he was put in charge of re-establishing the legal structures of the organisation in the PWV region and was elected its first chairperson. He often travelled around the country with Walter Sisulu visiting violence flashpoints. He was elected unopposed as the Secretary General of the African National Congress (ANC) in 1997 and was re-elected in 2002. Among other things, his responsibilities included the development of party-to-party relations in the region, across the countries of the South, and around the world. In December 2007 he was elected ANC Deputy President at its 52nd National Conference in Polokwane. In July 2008 he was appointed Minister in The Presidency of the Republic of South Africa, and on 25 September 2008 was sworn in as South Africa’s third democratically elected President.
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