South African tycoon Tokyo Sexwale's name enters the race to succeed Cyril Ramaphosa as ANC president

A lobby group backed by KwaZulu-Natal ANC structures has put Tokyo Sexwale's name formally into the race to succeed Cyril Ramaphosa as ANC president, producing a written motivation document that argues the 73-year-old billionaire and Robben Island veteran is the candidate the party needs ahead of its 2027 elective conference, the Mail and Guardian reported on April 23.

The group, calling itself the "Tokyo/Mvela Perspective," has drafted a document titled "Motivation for Consideration of Tokyo Sexwale for ANC Presidency" which it intends to submit to ANC leadership to stimulate internal debate. The paper argues that Sexwale combines "struggle credentials, governance experience, ethical standing and strategic insight required to lead the movement at a critical juncture."

Mukelani Lushaba, a campaigner for Sexwale's return to frontline politics, said there was growing support in KwaZulu-Natal and other parts of the country. "We have majority support in several branches in eThekwini and other regions in the province. All we are saying is comrade Tokyo would be a breath of fresh air," he said.

Lushaba told the Mail and Guardian that discussions had emerged in ANC branches across Umlazi, Soweto, Gugulethu, KwaMashu, Zwelitsha, Thembisa and Soshanguve, driven by concerns about declining electoral support and what qualities the next generation of leadership must possess.

What the document says

The motivation paper frames Sexwale not as a declared candidate but as a conversation starter. It states that "a strong sentiment emerging is that the current leadership collective, particularly within the NEC that has presided over electoral decline, cannot simply be recycled without consequence," while also emphasising "the importance of balancing renewal with continuity."

The document describes Sexwale as a bridge figure whose leadership "offers an opportunity for renewal grounded in integrity, discipline and service." It is careful to position the push as a response to grassroots anxiety rather than a formal candidacy declaration. Whether Sexwale himself has sanctioned the campaign was not confirmed in the Mail and Guardian's reporting.

Who Tokyo Sexwale is

Sexwale's political biography covers more ground than most. Born in Orlando West, Soweto in 1953, he joined Steve Biko's Black Consciousness Movement as a teenager and later became part of the ANC's armed wing, Umkhonto we Sizwe. He received military training in the Soviet Union before being captured by security forces upon his return to South Africa in 1976. Convicted of terrorism and conspiracy to overthrow the government, he was sentenced to 18 years and spent 13 of them on Robben Island alongside Nelson Mandela. He used the time to study for a BCom degree through the University of South Africa.

After his release in 1990, he rose quickly through the post-apartheid political structure. In 1994 he became the first premier of Gauteng Province, serving until 1998. He left active politics voluntarily that year, tired of internal ANC intrigues and reportedly in friction with Thabo Mbeki, and walked into business with a level of political capital few in South Africa could match.

The Mvelaphanda years

The business empire he built was called Mvelaphanda, a Venda word meaning "progress." He founded it in 1998 and 1999 alongside Mark Willcox, a lawyer turned dealmaker who became the operational engine behind Sexwale's commercial ambitions. Together they built one of the most aggressive empowerment conglomerates in South African mining history.

The foundation was diamonds. Sexwale has said he struck it lucky almost immediately after entering the diamond business in Angola, hitting a substantial diamond layer with his earliest operation there. He told a South African business magazine that the initial wealth was almost accidental. That origin story sat alongside a more structured set of relationships: Sexwale was close to Jean-Yves Ollivier, a French oil and diamond tycoon with deep connections across Francophone Africa, and it was partly through those networks that early diamond opportunities materialized. In 1997, Sexwale and Sivule Xayiya co-founded Mvelaphanda Diamonds, the precursor structure to everything that followed.

From diamonds, the group pivoted to building positions in South Africa's large mining houses, taking full advantage of the newly promulgated Mineral and Petroleum Resources Development Act and its Mining Charter, which required mining companies to sell 26% of their equity to Black Economic Empowerment partners. Mvelaphanda Resources was formally listed in 2004 and through it, Mvela Holdings accumulated diverse mining interests in gold through Gold Fields, platinum through Northam Platinum, and diamonds through Trans Hex.

At its peak, Mvelaphanda Resources generated revenues of $224 million in 2003 alone. Sexwale chaired both Northam Platinum and Trans Hex Group while simultaneously sitting as a director at Gold Fields and Absa Group. He also held non-executive positions at Allied Electronics Corporation. The group had Russian precious metal concessions alongside its African assets, making it one of the few South African empowerment companies with a genuinely international resource base.

The man who made much of this dealmaking work was Willcox. A 2005 Mail and Guardian profile attributed a claim allegedly made by Willcox to associates that he had netted R300 million in empowerment deals alone, and at the time he held a 4.4% stake in Mvela Holdings worth R118 million. Their partnership was highly effective during the empowerment deal boom of the early 2000s, when political credentials and commercial access intersected profitably.

The group's ambitions extended beyond South Africa's borders in ways that generated controversy. In 2011, Sexwale was involved in a plan to loan $25 million to the Guinean government to finance the creation of a new state mining company. The deal was structured alongside Willcox, Palladino Holdings and others, and was tied to Guinean President Alpha Conde's new mining code that would have granted the state entity free equity in Guinea's mining projects. The World Bank flagged the arrangement for potential investigation, questioning whether the loan was genuinely intended for state mining development or to benefit political interests in exchange for concessions. The money reportedly never reached the Guinean state's accounts.

Willcox also presided over the sale of Mvela Resources shares to Afripalm Resources, a company that held the business interests of Lazarus Zim and the Gupta brothers. That connection later became awkward given the Guptas' role in South Africa's state capture scandal.

The listed Mvelaphanda Resources eventually delisted in 2011 in a deal with Northam Platinum. The group had by then shifted its focus toward energy. In 2010, Mvela Holdings invested in Ophir Resources, a UK-listed business with oil prospects in central and West Africa. Willcox also worked with Khulubuse Zuma, President Jacob Zuma's nephew, on acquiring energy prospects in central Africa during this period.

The broader Mvelaphanda Group was wound down progressively through unbundling over the following years. When Sexwale returned to active politics as Minister of Human Settlements in 2009, he resigned his directorships in the listed Mvela Group and its subsidiaries. What had once been one of the largest black-owned companies in South Africa, positioned by some analysts as 3rd only to JFPI Corporation and De Beers in its sector, gradually contracted as its assets were sold off or restructured.

Sexwale retained Mvelaphanda Holdings privately and remains its executive chairman. The privately held vehicle still carries mining, energy and related interests, and still holds concessions across Africa and Russia through Mvelaphanda Resources, but the empire is a fraction of what it was at the height of the empowerment deal era. His net worth is estimated at approximately $200 million.

His other ventures over the years included chairing MOCOH Energy and Arcus Gibb Engineering, sitting on the Brookings Institution's International Advisory Council, and serving as an honorary colonel in the South African Air Force. In 2016, he ran for the FIFA presidency and lost to Gianni Infantino. He married his current wife Natacha Da Silva in November 2022.

Back to politics

Sexwale's last frontline political act was his removal from cabinet by Jacob Zuma in July 2013, reportedly because he had been lobbying internally against Zuma. He ran unsuccessfully for the ANC's deputy presidency at the Mangaung conference in 2012, losing to Cyril Ramaphosa. He has been out of active party leadership for 13 years.

The wider succession field

Sexwale enters a conversation that has been simmering since the ANC's 2024 general election performance pushed it into a government of national unity for the first time, stripping it of the outright majority it had held since 1994.

A recent Social Research Foundation poll placed Patrice Motsepe as the most favoured potential candidate at 33%, followed by Fikile Mbalula at 22% and Paul Mashatile at just over 11%. Motsepe, the mining billionaire and CAF president, has previously denied any interest in the ANC presidency. Mbalula, the ANC secretary-general, and Mashatile, the Deputy President, are both seen as more conventionally positioned candidates. National Assembly speaker Thoko Didiza is also being mentioned.

Mbalula has cautioned against the speculation, saying the narrative was "driven by the belief that the ANC must essentially exist as a tool to contest power in order to advance self-aggrandisement" and calling such interpretations "misguided."

Whether Sexwale's reentry into succession conversations translates into a formal bid or remains a lobbying exercise will depend on how the ANC's internal processes develop over the coming months. The 2027 conference is still more than a year away, and the ANC's history suggests that the field rarely looks at the start of the race the way it looks at the end.