Dina Deliwe Pule (born 19 July 1960) is a South African politician who has been the Deputy Secretary-General of the African National Congress (ANC) Women's League since July 2023. Before that, she was Minister of Communications under President Jacob Zuma from October 2011 to July 2013, but she was fired during a parliamentary inquiry into allegations that she had contravened the parliamentary code of conduct. The allegations were ultimately substantiated by Parliament's Joint Committee on Ethics and Members' Interests and by the Public Protector, leading Parliament to suspend and reprimand Pule.
Born in Mpumalanga, Pule first held public office as a Member of the Mpumalanga Provincial Legislature for a single term between 2004 and 2009. During that period, she held several portfolios as a Member of the Executive Council under former Premier Thabang Makwetla. After her election to the National Assembly in 2009, she served under Zuma as Deputy Minister of Communications from 2009 to 2010 and Deputy Minister in the Presidency for Performance Monitoring and Evaluation from 2010 to 2011, before being appointed to Zuma's cabinet in 2011. After the misconduct finding against her in August 2013, Pule declined to stand for re-election as an ordinary Member of Parliament in the 2014 general election.
At the ANC's 55th National Conference in December 2022, Pule was elected to a five-year term as a member of the ANC National Executive Committee. She previously served on the committee between 2007 and 2012. She was elected to her ANC Women's League office in July 2023.
Early life and career
Pule was born on 19 July 1960 in a village on the outskirts of Hazyview in the former the Eastern Transvaal (now Mpumalanga province). She attended Elijah Mango College of Education in Nelspruit from 1987 to 1989, where she trained as a secondary school teacher; while there, she served on the student representative council (first as secretary and then as deputy president) and as a founding member of the anti-apartheid South African National Students Congress. In addition to her teaching diploma, Pule subsequently received a Bachelor of Arts degree in communications from the University of South Africa.
In 1990 and 1991, while working as a teacher, Pule was a founding member of the Eastern Transvaal Women's Union and the secretary of a local branch of the South African Democratic Teachers' Union (SADTU). From 1991 to 1993, she was Provincial Treasurer of the Mpumalanga branch of SADTU. At the same time, Pule became active in structures of the African National Congress (ANC), which was unbanned by the apartheid government in 1990: from 1990 to 1991, she was the Provincial Secretary of the ANC Women's League in Mpumalanga and a regional leader of the ANC Youth League in the region.
She joined the post-apartheid government as a public servant in 1996, when she was appointed community liaison officer at the health department in the provincial government of Mpumalanga. The following year, she was elected secretary of her local ANC branch in Nelspruit. She held that position until 1999, when she was elected chairperson of the local branch of the ANC Women's League in Nelspruit. In 2001, Pule ascended a rung in the ANC hierarchy when she was elected deputy secretary of the ANC's entire Ehlanzeni region; she held that position until 2004.
Provincial government: 2004–2009
In the 2004 general election, Pule was elected as a Member of the Mpumalanga Provincial Legislature. In 2005, she was appointed as a Member of the Executive Council (MEC) in Mpumalanga by Thabang Makwetla, who was then the Premier of Mpumalanga. She was MEC for Safety and Security until February 2007, when – in what was viewed as a promotion for Pule – she was moved to the Agriculture and Land Administration portfolio in a reshuffle by Makwetla. In a subsequent reshuffle in May 2008, she succeeded Jabu Mahlangu as MEC for Culture, Sport and Recreation. In that capacity, she chaired the Mpumalanga government's political task team ahead of the 2010 Soccer World Cup.
Over the same period, Pule continued to rise in the ranks of the provincial ANC. She was Chairperson of the ANC's Ehlanzeni region from 2004 to 2007 and in June 2005 she was elected as a three-year term as Deputy Provincial Secretary of the Mpumalanga ANC, serving under Provincial Secretary Lucas Mello. Towards the end of her term as Deputy Provincial Secretary, at the ANC's 52nd National Conference in December 2007, Pule was elected to a five-year term on the ANC National Executive Committee. She was also elected to the party's National Working Committee.