Bantu Holomisa

Bantubonke Harrington " Bantu " Holomisa ( born July 25, 1955 in Mqanduli, Transkei ) is a South African politician. He is chairman of the party United Democratic Movement (UDM ).

Life

In 1976, Holomisa member of the Transkei Defence Force. After his promotion to Commander in 1987, he led a military coup against the then government of the Transkei under President Kaizer Matanzima and the Prime Minister Stella Sigcau, in which the de facto makes wealthy South African troops did not intervene. Henceforth, he was president of the formally independent homelands Transkei. In 1989, he lifted the ban on the African National Congress (ANC ) and the Pan - Africanist Congress (PAC). An apparently initiated by the South African secret service coup attempt against Holomisa failed in 1990; the rebels were shot without trial. In April 1994, the Transkei was incorporated into the South African Eastern Cape, so that Holomisa lost his position. In the same year he became a member of the Executive Committee of the African National Congress and South African Deputy Minister of Environment and Tourism. After he had testified in 1996 before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission for the Investigation of crimes committed during the apartheid era, he was expelled from the ANC and lost his ministerial post. He founded in 1997 with the white ex-minister Roelf Meyer, the United Democratic Movement, took over as Chairman and in 1999 member of the UDM in the South African Parliament. Since 2009, the UDM except Holomisa only three other MPs in Parliament.

Prior to his assumption of office as President of the Transkei Holomisa also worked as a senior sports official. He is married and has three children.