Nompumelelo Runji

Nompumelelo is a thought leader with a solid track record in policy and political analysis. She is featured regularly in online and print media, as well as on radio and television. With years of experience as a communicator and researcher, she has authored and contributed to books, papers and articles. She writes a weekly column that has been running since 2014 for the Sowetan, South Africa’s second biggest daily newspaper, providing analysis on sociopolitical developments that have implications for democratic consolidation and deepening and governance in the country. Nompumelelo has a background in academia and has been a part-time lecturer at the University of Pretoria’s Department of Political Science since 2016 where she is currently pursuing her PhD under a Mellon Foundation Scholarship. Her research focus is analysing the effects of social media on political agency and implications for democratic consolidation and deepening which uses social media use among Fees Must Fall activists as a case study. She holds a BSocsci in Industrial Sociology and Labour Studies, BA (Honours) in Political Science as well as a MPhil in Multidisciplinary Human Rights from the Centre for Human Rights at the University of Pretoria where she wrote a minidissertation on the constitutional reform process in Kenya with a particular focus on the appointment of judges and the implications of judicial reform for democratic consolidation.

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