Sylvia Lucas
| Sylvia Lucas | |
|---|---|
| Premier of the Northern Cape | |
|
Assumed office 23 May 2013 |
|
| Preceded by | Hazel Jenkins |
| Personal details | |
| Political party | African National Congress |
Sylvia Lucas is the fourth Premier of the Northern Cape Province, South Africa, elected and inaugurated as successor to Hazel Jenkins. She served briefly as Acting Premier and before that as MEC (Member of the Executive Council) for Environmental Affairs in the Northern Cape Provincial Legislature. She was born on 22 April 1964, and grew up in Upington in the Northern Cape.
Lucas attended the Carlton Van Heerden High School in Upington where in the early 1980s she first became involved in political activities.
She later took part in the Rosedale rent boycotts, and was part of the delegation to the Transitional Council, to ensure provision of prepaid electricity to communities when they could not afford conventional electrical power.
Lucas is a former typist for the National Party who joined the ANC in 1992. Sylvia Lucas joined the African National Congress (ANC) as an ordinary branch member in 1992
From 1995 to 2000 Lucas served as a councillor for the //Khara Hais Local Municipality, in Upington, while serving in regional structures of the ANC in the area. She served as the first female chairperson of the ANC in Siyanda region from 2001 to 2004.
In 2000 Lucas was elected to serve in the Northern Cape Provincial Legislature. Her name was fourth on the candidate list for the Northern Cape announced by ANC Secretary General Kgalema Motlanthe in 2003.
In 2004 she was elected on the provincial executive committee of the ANC in the Northern Cape. She had also meanwhile risen through the ranks of the ANC Women's League, acting as provincial secretary following the resignation of Maykie Dipuo. This position made her an ex officio member of the league's national executive committee. By 2007, as deputy provincial chairwoman of the Women's League. In 2009 she was appointed as the MEC Environment and Nature Conservation in the Northern Cape..
Lucas participated in ANC international study tours in the United Kingdom, Canada and the United States, and "holds numerous university certificates."
After former Northern Cape premier Hazel Jenkins collapsed, suffering a stroke, in 2012, the Executive Council of the Province appointed Grizelda Cjiekella as Acting Premier for the duration of Premier Jenkins' incapacity leave. When, a year later, Hazel Jenkins stepped down from the post of Premier of the Northern Cape, it was Sylvia Lucas whom the ANC in the province announced, on 19 April 2013, as the premier's successor. On the date set for Lucas's inauguration as Premier, however, the motion to recognise Jenkins' stepping down was opposed on procedural grounds. A vote in the Northern Cape legislature on 30 April 2013, in which opposition parties COPE and the Democratic Alliance took part, failed to achieve the required two-thirds support for the motion to be carried. Accordingly, Jenkins technically remained premier and Lucas was sworn in on the same day as Grizelda Cjiekella's successor as acting premier of the province.
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