Gerald Morkel

Who is Gerald Morkel?

Gerald Morkel is a former Mayor of Cape Town and Premier of the Western Cape province in South Africa. He later served as a member of the Cape Town City Council for the Democratic Alliance until his retirement from politics in 2011.

He was elected on a Labour Party ticket to the coloureds-only House of Representatives in the Tricameral Parliament in 1984. He defected to the National Party by 1994, and was appointed the Western Cape leader of the renamed New National Party by 1998, when he became premier of the province after Hernus Kriel stepped down. In 2000, the NNP joined with the Democratic Party to form the Democratic Alliance, with Morkel remaining as premier.

However, Morkel was deeply critical of the NNP leaders decision to pull out of the DA in 2001, and attempted to turn the majority of the NNP against the decision by its leader Marthinus van Schalkwyk to co-operate with the African National Congress. When this failed, he was forced to resign as premier. Staying with the DA, he was then elected as mayor of Cape Town. He remained in office for less than a year, when the DA was ousted from power by an ANC-NNP coalition following the floor crossing period in 2002.