Duma rose to political prominence in the ANC Youth League of KwaZulu-Natal. He has served in the KwaZulu-Natal Provincial Legislature since 2014 and was the legislature's Chair of Chairs until shortly after his election as ANC provincial chairperson in mid-2022, when he was appointed to the Executive Council of newly elected Premier Nomusa Dube-Ncube.
Duma was the deputy chairperson of the ANC's George Mbhele local branch on the Lower South Coast between 2004 and 2006.[2]
In May 2010, he was elected deputy provincial secretary of the ANCYL's KwaZulu-Natal branch.[3][4] Shortly after being elected, the branch's leadership announced that it would support controversial politician Julius Malema in his bid for re-election as national president of the league.[4] However, according to the Daily Maverick, the KwaZulu-Natal ANCYL leadership fell out with the Malema-led national ANCYL leadership when the latter, but not the former, retracted its support for incumbent ANC president Jacob Zuma.[3] In October 2011, at a meeting between the national and provincial ANCYL leaders, Duma alleged that the national leadership was "factionalist" and was targeting the KwaZulu-Natal ANCYL because of its support for Zuma.[5]
The following week, the ANCYL national leadership announced that it had disbanded the leadership committee of the KwaZulu-Natal ANCYL, prematurely ending the terms of Duma and other officials. ANCYL spokesperson Floyd Shivambu specifically singled out Duma's "factionalist" comment as an instance in which the KwaZulu-Natal leadership had shown "disregard of organisational process and due political conduct".[5] Shivambu also said that the national ANCYL planned to charge Duma and others for "active involvement in mobilising members... to defy and disregard the decisions" of the Malema-led national leadership.[5]
Provincial government
In the 2014 general election, Duma was elected to the KwaZulu-Natal Provincial Legislature as an ANC representative. He was re-elected to another term in the provincial legislature in 2019.[6] In June 2019, he was appointed Chair of Committees ("Chair of Chairs") in the legislature.[7]
ANC Provincial Chairperson
By 2022, Duma was a member of the Provincial Executive Committee of the ANC's KwaZulu-Natal provincial branch.[2] In May of that year, he emerged as a possible candidate for provincial chairperson of the ANC in KwaZulu-Natal.[8] At that time, the frontrunners for the chairmanship appeared to be Nomusa Dube-Ncube and the incumbent, Sihle Zikalala.[9] However, Duma was nominated for the position by the ANC's John Mchunu local branch in eThekwini[2] and received the support of the eThekwini regional branch.[10] He campaigned at the head of a slate of candidates who represented the so-called "Taliban" faction, which was sympathetic to former party president Jacob Zuma.[11] Duma later explained that the name alluded to his slate's status as "underdogs" and to "the resilience of the Taliban in fighting against the United States all these years".[1]
At the ANC's provincial conference on 23 July 2022, Duma comfortably defeated Zikalala in the election for provincial chairperson, winning 930 votes to Zikalala's 665.[12] Candidates linked to the Taliban faction made a clean sweep of all the provincial leadership positions contested at the conference.[13][14][15] Duma's election was described as a "big blow" to the re-election campaign of current party president Cyril Ramaphosa ahead of the party's 55th National Conference in December 2022.[16]
Member of the Executive Council
After his election, Duma said that he did not intend to use his victory to remove Zikalala from the office of the Premier of KwaZulu-Natal.[17] Nonetheless, on 5 August 2022, Zikalala resigned as premier and was replaced by Nomusa Dube-Ncube. On 11 August, in a cabinet reshuffle by Dube-Ncube, Duma was appointed as the Member of the Executive Council (MEC) for Economic Development, Tourism and Environmental Affairs in the KwaZulu-Natal provincial government.[18]