Cassel Mathale

Cassel Mathale (born 23 January 1961) is a South African politician who was the third Premier of Limpopo between March 2009 and July 2013. He is currently the Deputy Minister of Police in the South African government and before that was Deputy Minister of Small Business Development from February 2018 to May 2019.

Formerly an anti-apartheid activist in the United Democratic Front, Mathale began his political career in the Limpopo provincial legislature and in the Limpopo branch of the African National Congress (ANC). He served as Provincial Secretary of the ANC in Limpopo from 2002 to 2008, when he was elected the party's Provincial Chairperson. Additionally, from December 2008 he was a Member of the Executive Council for Roads and Transport in the Limpopo provincial government under Premier Sello 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 ANC National Executive Committee disbanded the ANC Provincial Executive Committee in March 2013, amid a scandal which appeared to implicate Mathale and his close ally Julius 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 the National Assembly. Several years into Mathale's tenure in Parliament, President Cyril Ramaphosa appointed him Deputy Minister of Small Business Development in February 2018 and then Deputy Minister of Police in May 2019.

Early life and activism Cassel Charlie Mathale was born on 23 January 1961 in Tzaneen outside Polokwane in what was then the Northern Transvaal, now Limpopo province. He matriculated at Phangasasa High School in Tzaneen and earned a Bachelor's degree in social sciences from the University of the Western Cape in Cape Town. He left the provincial legislature and government in 1996, and the ANC provincial executive in 1997,

At the same time, towards the end of his second term as Provincial Secretary, Mathale launched a bid to replace Sello Moloto as Provincial 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 secretary Julius Malema. The league had turned against Moloto when Moloto supported incumbent ANC President Thabo Mbeki in his succession battle with ANC Deputy President Jacob Zuma, who ultimately ousted Mbeki at the ANC's 52nd National Conference. In early 2008, Mathale and Moloto's rivalry became highly divisive in the Limpopo ANC; their respective supporters clashed violently on several occasions. Mathale beat Moloto by more than 200 votes.

Finally, in December 2008, Moloto appointed Mathale as Member of the Executive Council (MEC) for Roads and Transport, Although there was some speculation that Maite Nkoana-Mashabane might be appointed Premier instead of Mathale, he was formally sworn in to the office on 24 March. Pursuant to the general election in May that year, he was elected to a full term as Premier.

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 the Tripartite Alliance, the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) and the South African Communist Party (SACP), which had publicly called for Mathale's resignation, accusing him of presiding over a corrupt administration. 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's 53rd National Conference, scheduled for December 2012.

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 a R700-million bailout from the National Treasury after commercial banks withdrew their credit lines. In early December 2011, five provincial departments in Mathale's administration, including the provincial treasury under MEC David Masondo, had been placed under administration by the national government.

In January 2012, after Mathale's re-election as ANC chair, the full scale of the province's administrative and financial problems emerged. Both the Auditor-General and the national Ministry 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. In February, a spokesman for the Hawks said that Mathale, his wife, and Julius Malema were under investigation on allegations of corruption and business irregularities. Later in 2012, Mathale's business partner, Selby Manthatha, was charged with corruption, fraud, and money laundering; the National Prosecuting Authority alleged that Manthatha and other members of his family had bribed Malema to obtain government tenders.

Succession as Premier 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. 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.

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 General Gwede Mantashe said that the Mathale-led committee had been dissolved "for displaying totally un-ANC behaviour and institutionalised factional conflict".

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's cadre deployment policy. His resignation as Premier was effective from 15 July 2013. The Limpopo branch of Cosatu opposed his appointment. Nonetheless, he was elected to a full five-year term in the National Assembly in the 2014 general election and on 25 October 2017 he was appointed chairperson of the Portfolio Committee on Public Service and Administration. In the 2019 general election, Mathale was re-elected to the National Assembly and Ramaphosa appointed him Deputy Minister of Police under Minister Bheki Cele.

Personal life Mathale is married and has children.