Ms Leonah Lindiwe Ntshalintshali

Former Member of the Executive Council (MEC) for Social Development in the provincial government of Mpumalanga. She was previously MEC for Arts, Sports, Culture and Recreation from 2019 to 2021 and Mayor of Witbank's Emalahleni Local Municipality from 2015 to 2018.

A nurse by training, Ntshalintshali is a former member of the African National Congress (ANC) Youth League and entered government in 2006 as a local councillor in Emalahleni. While mayor, she became Deputy President of the South African Local Government Association. She left local government and the mayoral position in March 2018, when she became acting Provincial Secretary of the ANC in Mpumalanga. Pursuant to the 2019 general election, she was elected a Member of the Mpumalanga Provincial Legislature. She was elected to a second term as ANC Deputy Provincial Secretary in April 2022 and resigned from this post when she was elected as a member of the ANC's National Executive Committee (NEC) in December 2022.

Ntshalintshali was born on 11 April 1977 in Lynville, Witbank and grew up in Phola outside Ogies. She matriculated from Mabande Comprehensive School in 1996 and subsequently obtained a certificate in nursing from Middelburg Nursing College before beginning work as a nurse at Middelburg Hospital, a public hospital in Middelburg, Mpumalanga.

While a student, Ntshalintshali was active in the Congress of South African Students and later in local structures of the African National Congress (ANC) Youth League. In 2005, she was elected to the Provincial Executive Committee of the ANC Youth League in Mpumalanga. In later years, she held a range of positions in local structures of the mainstream ANC, becoming Regional Deputy Secretary of the ANC's Nkangala region.

In the 2006 municipal elections, Ntshalintshali was elected as a local councillor in the Emalahleni Local Municipality. She was re-elected to a second term as councillor in the 2011 municipal elections. During her two terms as councillor, she was appointed a Member of the Mayoral Committee for Development and Planning and later for Technical Services.

On 30 July 2015, toward the end of Ntshalintshali's second term as councillor, the council elected her Executive Mayor of Emalahleni.

In 2016, while mayor, Ntshalintshali was elected as one of three deputy presidents of the South African Local Government Association (SALGA).Ntshalintshali had previously been a member of SALGA's provincial executive between 2013 and 2015. She also served as president of the African section of United Cities and Local Government.

Simultaneously, Ntshalintshali was a member of the Provincial Executive Committee of the ANC in Mpumalanga, having been elected to the seat at a party elective conference in 2012. At the next elective conference in December 2015, she was elected ANC Deputy Provincial Secretary.

In mid-March 2018, she announced that she intended to resign as mayor to concentrate on her party-political work. She was appointed to lead the ANC's election campaign in Mpumalanga province ahead of the 2019 general election and she also became acting ANC Provincial Secretary in Mpumalanga, a full-time post at the party's provincial headquarters.

In the May 2019 general elections, Ntshalintshali was elected as a Member of the Mpumalanga Provincial Legislature and appointed as Member of the Executive Council (MEC) for Arts, Sports, Culture and Recreation in the Mpumalanga provincial government. In February 2021, in a reshuffle of the Executive Council, Ntshalintshali became MEC for Social Development.