Manana stood as an ANC candidate in the
2009 general election and won a seat in the
National Assembly, the lower house of the
South African Parliament. According to the
Mail & Guardian, he was the youngest Member of Parliament at the time. He served on two
portfolio committees – the Portfolio Committee on Public Works and
Portfolio Committee on International Relations and Cooperation – and he also represented Parliament on the
Magistrate's Commission. and he was also considered, by opponents of incumbent league president
Julius Malema, as a possible contender to run for higher office in the league. In April 2012, Manana caused a minor stir by contradicting Malema's supporters in an interview with the
New Age: Manana said that it was a "misrepresentation of the facts" to claim, as some had, that the league's leadership had resolved to support Malema even if he was convicted on disciplinary charges by the mainstream ANC. Manana's statement put him in alignment with President
Jacob Zuma, who was pursuing Malema's removal, and his comments led league deputy president
Ronald Lamola to condemn his "ill-discipline".
Appointment as Deputy Minister: 2012 On 12 June 2012, President Zuma announced a cabinet reshuffle in which Manana was appointed as
Deputy Minister of Higher Education and Training. He deputised
Blade Nzimande and, aged 28, became the youngest deputy minister in the post-
apartheid period. The promotion was rumoured to be a reward for defending Zuma's moves against Malema. Manana defended himself, pointing to his "energy" and personal experience in institutions of
higher education, and argued that students ought not to "undermine the president and question his capacity to appoint members of the executive".
Assault conviction: 2017 In the early hours of Sunday morning on 6 August 2017, Manana was involved in the
assault of three women at a nightclub, Cubana, in
Fourways in northern
Johannesburg. The story broke in the media later on Sunday. One of the women, Mandisa Duma, told
City Press that the altercation had begun inside the club with a heated political debate about whether
Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma or
Cyril Ramaphosa should be chosen to succeed Zuma as ANC president. When the argument became hostile, Duma and her friends had left the club, one of them making a comment about Manana being
gay, which apparently triggered the assault. In Duma's account, Manana had slapped one of the women and pulled her hair and then had slapped another outside the club, as Manana's friends attacked the others. In addition to video footage of part of the assault, which went
viral on social media, press released an audio recording in which Manana appeared to confess to the assault. In the clip, Manana says in
Zulu, "My brother, when she swore at me and called me gay, I slapped her". On 7 August, Manana posted an apology to Twitter, The opposition
Economic Freedom Fighters called on Manana to resign and hand himself over to the
police, and the police said that an arrest was imminent. He made his first court appearance in the
Randburg Magistrate's Court on 10 August and was released on
R5,000 bail. Journalists were not allowed inside the courtroom, leading to allegations that Manana was receiving preferential treatment, but Police Minister
Fikile Mbalula said that he "will not be treated with special kid gloves but will face the full wrath of the law".
Sentencing On 13 September 2017, Manana was convicted on three counts of assault with intent to do
grievous bodily harm, having pled guilty to assaulting the women. In November, he was sentenced to pay a R100,000 fine in lieu of serving 12 months' imprisonment. He was also required to complete
anger-management classes and 500 hours of community service, and to compensate the victims for their medical expenses (about R26,500 in total), and he was declared
unfit to possess a firearm. Two other men pled guilty to involvement in the assault.
Resignation On 19 August 2017, a week after Manana's first court appearance, the Presidency announced that Zuma had accepted Manana's resignation as Deputy Minister. Manana also released his own lengthy statement, admitting that his behaviour at Cubana was "shameful" and inexcusable. The ANC welcomed his resignation and thanked him for his service. As a backbencher, he served on the Portfolio Committee on Human Settlements.
Resignation from Parliament: 2018 In early May 2018, media reported that Manana's
domestic worker, Christine Wiro, had laid a complaint against him with the police, alleging that he had tried to push her down the stairs in his home in Fourways. Wiro later withdrew the complaint, but the
Sunday Times reported that she did so after Manana offered her R100,000 as a "consolation". The newspaper said that it had an audio recording of Manana making the offer. Manana said that the recording in fact captured an attempt by Wiro and her family to
blackmail him. The saga intensified calls for Manana to resign from Parliament, but the
National Prosecuting Authority announced on 23 July that it would not prosecute Manana in relation to the incident. However, also on 23 July, Parliament's
Joint Committee on Ethics and Members' Interests announced that Manana would face a disciplinary inquiry to determine Parliament's response to his 2017 assault conviction. The following day – the day before his first scheduled appearance before the inquiry – Manana pre-empted the inquiry by announcing his resignation from Parliament. He said that he felt "totally exonerated" of Wiro's complaints against him, which he viewed as "rooted in a politically-motivated
smear campaign against me by my political opponents", but he said that he had nonetheless decided to "focus my renewed energies on the work of my political organisation ahead of the
2019 general elections, my academic commitments and my business interests". Announcing his commitment to "eliminating
gender-based violence", Manana said that he would donate R1 million to Khuluma Ndoda, a new men's social movement against gender-based violence, and R500,000 to a campaign to distribute sanitary packs to African girls. == Luthuli House: 2023–present ==