Do we like them?

Do we like Thuli Madonsela?

Our score: 8 out of 10. A long record of standing up to power at a cost to herself, held back only because the record on LGBTQ+ issues is thin.

Thuli Madonsela is a Wits law graduate who became South Africa's Public Protector, the independent watchdog on government conduct, and served from 2009 to 2016. Wits gave her an honorary law doctorate in 2017, her fifth. She's now a law professor and still one of the country's best known voices on accountability.

Her defining fight was Nkandla, the upgrades to then-president Jacob Zuma's private home paid for with public money. In March 2016 the Constitutional Court unanimously found Zuma and the National Assembly had violated the constitution and affirmed her remedial action. Right after, she asked the Hawks to stop investigating her, saying “I am not a criminal, I am a public protector”.

Powerful people hit back, as you'd expect. In 2011, media reports claimed police were planning to arrest her on fraud and corruption charges, which she called “baseless, without truth and malicious”. She also said she had set up a company in 2003, run it until 2007, and that the relevant authorities knew about it. In 2019 she said of Zuma, over his claim he was never allowed to respond to her State of Capture report, “He's lying and I don't know why”. Zuma's side disputed that account.

On the harm check, we found nothing nasty. No slide into conspiracy theories, nothing against any group, and no dodgy company. In 2019 she praised Ramaphosa's anti-corruption moves while saying he should back law enforcement with resources and stay out of its way. The gap is that our searches turned up nothing from her on LGBTQ+ or trans rights, for or against. That's thin, not bad.

The good stuff is long and real. She founded a foundation that helps young people with self-leadership and the job market, and at Wits she told new graduates she didn't want to see one saying “I am unemployed”. Her whole public life has been about making the powerful answer to ordinary people.

Nothing recent turned up that we could verify, so there's no fresh controversy to report. Everyone cops allegations in a job like hers, and what matters is the pattern: she answered them openly and the major rulings went her way. She calls for people to work together rather than burn each other down, and her record backs that up.