Max Sisulu

Max Sisulu
Sisulu in 1985
4th Speaker of the National Assembly of South Africa
In office 6 May 2009 – 21 May 2014
President	Jacob Zuma
Deputy	Nomaindia Mfeketo
Preceded by	Gwen Mahlangu-Nkabinde
Succeeded by	Baleka Mbete
Chief Whip of the Majority Party
In office February 1997 – November 1998
Preceded by	Makhenkesi Stofile
Succeeded by	Tony Yengeni
Member of the National Assembly
In office 6 May 2009 – 29 May 2014
In office 26 April 1994 – November 1998
Personal details
Born	Max Vuyisile Sisulu (1945-08-23) 23 August 1945 (age 78) Soweto, Transvaal Union of South Africa
Political party	African National Congress
Spouse(s)	Mercy Vutela ​ ​ (m. 1966; div. 1967)​ Elinor Sisulu ​ (m. 1986)​
Relations	Zwelakhe Sisulu (brother) Lindiwe Sisulu (sister) Mlungisi Sisulu (brother)
Children	5, including Shaka
Parents	Walter Albertina

Max Vuyisile Sisulu (born 23 August 1945) is a South African politician and businessman who was Speaker of the National Assembly from May 2009 to May 2014. A member of the African National Congress (ANC), he was a member of the party's National Executive Committee from December 1994 to December 2017.

Born in Soweto, Sisulu is the son of anti-apartheid activists Albertina and Walter Sisulu. Between 1963 and 1990, at the height of apartheid, he lived outside of South Africa with the exiled ANC and its military wing, Umkhonto we Sizwe. An economist by training, he was the ANC's head of economic planning from 1986 to 1990, and he remained influential in ANC economic policymaking in subsequent decades.

In April 1994, in South Africa's first democratic elections, Sisulu was elected to represent the ANC in the National Assembly, the lower house of the new South African Parliament. For much of the First Parliament, he was the chairperson of the Portfolio Committee on the Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP). Then, from February 1997 to November 1998, he served as Chief Whip of the Majority Party. However, he resigned from his seat in November 1998 to work in business, first at Denel and later at Sasol.

He did not return to Parliament until the April 2009 general election, pursuant to which he was elected as the Speaker. He was the first man to serve as Speaker since the end of apartheid, and the first black man ever to serve as Speaker in the South African Parliament. He served in the office throughout the Fourth Parliament but was replaced by Baleka Mbete after the May 2014 general election.