Cassel Mathale | |
|---|---|
| DeputyMinister of Police | |
| Assumed office 29 May 2019 | |
| President | Cyril Ramaphosa |
| Minister | Bheki Cele |
| Preceded by | Bongani Mkongi |
| DeputyMinister of Small Business Development | |
| In office 26 February 2018 – 7 May 2019 | |
| President | Cyril Ramaphosa |
| Minister | Lindiwe Zulu |
| Preceded by | Nomathemba November |
| Succeeded by | Rosemary Capa |
| 3rdPremier of Limpopo | |
| In office 3 March 2009 – 15 July 2013 | |
| President | Jacob Zuma |
| Preceded by | Sello Moloto |
| Succeeded by | Stanley Mathabatha |
| Provincial Chairperson of the African National Congress in Limpopo | |
| In office 17 July 2008 – March 2013 | |
| Deputy | Dickson Masemola |
| Preceded by | Sello Moloto |
| Succeeded by | Stanley Mathabatha |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Cassel Charlie Mathale (1961-01-23)23 January 1961 (age 65) |
| Party | African National Congress |
| Alma mater | University of the Western Cape |
Cassel Mathale (born 23 January 1961) is a South African politician who was the thirdPremier of Limpopo between March 2009 and July 2013. He is currently the DeputyMinister of Police in theSouth African government and before that was DeputyMinister of Small Business Development from February 2018 to May 2019.
Formerly ananti-apartheid activist in theUnited Democratic Front, Mathale began his political career in theLimpopo provincial legislature and in the Limpopo branch of theAfrican National Congress (ANC). He served asProvincial Secretary of the ANC in Limpopo from 2002 to 2008, when he was elected the party'sProvincial Chairperson. Additionally, from December 2008 he was aMember of the Executive Council for Roads and Transport in the Limpopoprovincial government under PremierSello Moloto. When Moloto resigned in March 2009, Mathale became acting Premier and then was formally elected as Premier by the provincial legislature.
Though re-elected as ANC Provincial Chairperson in December 2011, Mathale lost the position when the ANCNational Executive Committee disbanded the ANCProvincial Executive Committee in March 2013, amid a scandal which appeared to implicate Mathale and his close allyJulius Malema in improper conduct. Several months later, the national ANC withdrew its support for Mathale's premiership and asked him to resign. He did so on 15 July 2013. After his resignation from the Limpopo government in July 2013, Mathale was sworn in as a Member of theNational Assembly. Several years into Mathale's tenure inParliament, PresidentCyril Ramaphosa appointed him Deputy Minister of Small Business Development in February 2018 and then Deputy Minister of Police in May 2019.
Cassel Charlie Mathale was born on 23 January 1961[1] inTzaneen outsidePolokwane in what was then the NorthernTransvaal, nowLimpopo province.[2] He matriculated at Phangasasa High School in Tzaneen and earned aBachelor's degree insocial sciences from theUniversity of the Western Cape inCape Town.[1]
In the 1980s and early 1990s, Mathale was politically active inanti-apartheid organisations in the Northern Transvaal, including local and regional branches of theAzanian Students Organisation, the Muhlava Youth Congress and Northern Transvaal Youth Congress, the Tzaneen Education Crisis Committee, and, once it had been established, theSouth African Students Congress.[1] He was a member of the regional executive committee of theUnited Democratic Front (UDF) in Northern Transvaal from 1986 to 1990 and was president of theSouth African Youth Congress in Northern Transvaal in 1990.[1] He was detained between 1986 and 1989 under theTerrorism Act.[2]
Additionally, in 1990, Mathale was appointed as a member of its interim leadership core of the Northern Transvaal branch of theAfrican National Congress (ANC), which had recently been unbanned by the apartheid government and was re-establishing its structures inside South Africa.[1] Subsequently he sat on the regional executive committee of the ANC in Northern Transvaal from 1990 to 1991 and again from 1993 to 1996.[1]
In South Africa's first democratic elections in 1994, Mathale was elected as aMember of theLimpopo Provincial Legislature and also became Commissioner for Youth Affairs inthe provincial government.[1] He served on theProvincial Executive Committee of the Limpopo ANC between 1994 and 1997.[3] He left the provincial legislature and government in 1996, and the ANC provincial executive in 1997,[3] but in 1996 was elected to a two-year term as a member of theANC Youth League's National Executive Committee.[1] In subsequent years he held a variety of positions in ANC structures in Limpopo: he was regional secretary for the ANC's North East Limpopo region from 1998 to 2000, a member of the regional executive committee of the ANC'sMopani region in 2000, and a member of the branch executive committee at a local ANC branch inNkowankowa from 2001 to 2002.[1]
In 2002, Mathale was electedProvincial Secretary of the ANC in Limpopo, one of the most senior leadership positions in the provincial party.[1] Although it was a full-time position based at ANC headquarters, theMail & Guardian observed that Mathale was simultaneously a "well-known entrepreneur" in Limpopo, withdirectorships in at least ten companies in themining, construction, farming, and hospitality sectors.[4]
At the same time, towards the end of his second term as Provincial Secretary, Mathale launched a bid to replaceSello Moloto asProvincial Chairperson of the ANC in Limpopo. He was supported by the Limpopo branch of the ANC Youth League, which at that time was led by league provincial secretaryJulius Malema.[2][5] The league had turned against Moloto when Moloto supported incumbent ANC PresidentThabo Mbeki in his succession battle with ANC Deputy PresidentJacob Zuma, who ultimately ousted Mbeki at the ANC's52nd National Conference.[6] In early 2008, Mathale and Moloto's rivalry became highly divisive in the Limpopo ANC; their respective supporters clashed violently on several occasions.[2][5]
The Limpopo ANC held its elective conference in July 2008 at theUniversity of Venda and, on 17 July, it elected Mathale as Provincial Chairperson of the ANC in Limpopo.[1][7] Mathale beat Moloto by more than 200 votes.[2] Two weeks later, the Mathale-led Provincial Executive Committee declined a request from the national ANC to nominate three people to stand as the ANC's candidate forPremier of Limpopo in the2009 general election; instead, the committee submitted only one name, Mathale's.[4] The provincial party also put Moloto, the incumbent Premier, under significant pressure, exhorting him to reshuffle the provincial executive and appoint Mathale to a senior government position.[8][9][10]
Finally, in December 2008, Moloto appointed Mathale asMember of the Executive Council (MEC) for Roads and Transport,[1] after the incumbent, Justice Piitso, resigned.[8] In addition, both as provincial secretary and as provincial chairperson, Mathale was anex officio member of the ANCNational Executive Committee.[1]
In March 2009, Moloto resigned as Premier and defected from the ANC to theCongress of the People, a new pro-Mbeki breakaway party. The Limpopo Executive Council appointed Mathale as acting Premier of Limpopo from 3 to 23 March 2009[1] while the provincial legislature prepared to select Moloto's successor.[11] Although there was some speculation thatMaite Nkoana-Mashabane might be appointed Premier instead of Mathale, he was formally sworn in to the office on 24 March.[12] Pursuant to the general election in May that year, he was elected to a full term as Premier.[1][13]
He was also re-elected as ANC Provincial Chairperson in December 2011, despite growing opposition to his leadership of the province. Discontent rested partly with the Limpopo provincial branches of the ANC's partners in theTripartite Alliance, theCongress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) and theSouth African Communist Party (SACP), which had publicly called for Mathale's resignation, accusing him of presiding over acorrupt administration.[14] At the same time, on some accounts, opposition to Mathale was linked to broader leadership struggles in the national ANC: Mathale remained an ally of Julius Malema, and together the pair were viewed as having turned against Zuma and as agitating for the ANC to depose Zuma at the ANC's53rd National Conference, scheduled for December 2012.[14] Yet when the Limpopo ANC held its elective conference, Mathale beat his challenger,Joe Phaahla, with 601 votes against Phaahla's 519.[15]
However, Mathale did not complete his full term either as Premier or as ANC Provincial Chairperson. In the weeks before the conference which re-elected Mathale, several newspapers had reported that Mathale's administration faced severe financial shortfalls and that Mathale had requested aR700-millionbailout from theNational Treasury after commercial banks withdrew their credit lines.[16] In early December 2011, five provincial departments in Mathale's administration, including the provincial treasury under MECDavid Masondo, had been placed under administration by thenational government.[16] Mathale's supporters later claimed that this move rendered Mathale "a lame duck premier" in subsequent months.[17]
In January 2012, after Mathale's re-election as ANC chair, the full scale of the province's administrative and financial problems emerged. Both theAuditor-General and the nationalMinistry of Finance reported publicly about the R2-billion budget shortfall faced by the Limpopo government, which they said was caused by a lack of spending restraint, including significant expenditure on contracts marred by procurement irregularities; both appeared to blame the crisis on the province's political leadership.[18][19][20][21] In February, a spokesman for theHawks said that Mathale, his wife, and Julius Malema were under investigation on allegations of corruption and business irregularities.[21] Other state agencies undertook their own investigations into procurement irregularities.[22][23] Later in 2012, Mathale's business partner, Selby Manthatha, was charged with corruption,fraud, andmoney laundering; theNational Prosecuting Authority alleged that Manthatha and other members of his family hadbribed Malema to obtain government tenders.[24]
In December 2012, the ANC's 53rd National Conference re-elected Jacob Zuma as ANC president. At the conference, Mathale stood unsuccessfully for direct election to the ANC's National Executive Committee.[25] Several months later, allegations of corruption and maladministration in Limpopo continued to receive a great deal of national attention; some members of the ANC in Limpopo also complained that Mathale had sown division in the party.[25] Others, however, suggested that opposition to Mathale was primarily a form of retribution for his opposition to Zuma's re-election.[17][26]
On 18 March 2013, the ANC National Executive Committee announced that it had dissolved the entire Provincial Executive Committee of the Limpopo ANC, prematurely ending Mathale's term as Provincial Chairperson. Fresh leadership elections would be organised by an interim leadership corps appointed by the national party leadership. ANC Secretary GeneralGwede Mantashe said that the Mathale-led committee had been dissolved "for displaying totally un-ANC behaviour and institutionalisedfactional conflict".[27]
In July 2013, the national leadership of the ANC asked Mathale to resign as Premier, "recalling" him from the post in line with the party'scadre deployment policy.[17][26] In a statement on 15 July, Mathale announced that he had complied with this request and had submitted his resignation letter. In the statement, he insisted that he and his administration had, "contrary to the wrong perception", strongly opposed "all forms of corruption within our jurisdiction".[28][29] His resignation as Premier was effective from 15 July 2013.[1] TheNational Education, Health and Allied Workers' Union, a Cosatu affiliate, praised the national ANC for its decision, saying, "Without being triumphalists, our union is happy to see that the ANC has at long last endorsed our view that Mr Mathale was a liability and an embarrassment to our movement and government".[26]
The same day that his resignation as Premier took effect, Mathale was sworn in as a Member of theNational Assembly, the lower house of thenational Parliament.[30] The Limpopo branch of Cosatu opposed his appointment.[31] Nonetheless, he was elected to a full five-year term in the National Assembly in the2014 general election and on 25 October 2017 he was appointed chairperson of thePortfolio Committee on Public Service and Administration.[30]
On 26 February 2018, Mathale gave up his committee chairmanship to take office as the DeputyMinister of Small Business Development under MinisterLindiwe Zulu.[30] He was installed in that position in acabinet reshuffle by PresidentCyril Ramaphosa, who had recently ascended to the presidency following the resignation of President Jacob Zuma.[32] In the2019 general election, Mathale was re-elected to the National Assembly and Ramaphosa appointed him DeputyMinister of Police under MinisterBheki Cele.[33]
Mathale is married[1] and has children.[2]
