WHO IS . . . GERALD MORKEL?
Gerald Morkel, the man who will replace Hernus Kriel as premier of the Western Cape on May 11, is best described as a politician who has risen without trace.
A stranger to controversy, one could say his very blandness ensured the job would be his.
It was a two-horse race, with many pundits backing the wrong one.
Most surprised of all by the result was the also-ran, MEC for Health Peter Marais, who burst into tears and immediately accused his own party of vote rigging.
This was, perhaps, the most graphic illustration yet of just why the National Party’s electoral college chose to put their money on Morkel, who might lack dynamism but is at least capable of first engaging his brain before opening his mouth.
In replacing Kriel, party leaders were faced with Hobson’s choice, despite Kriel’s claim that his departure would leave no vacuum because of the depth of leadership in the NP in the region.
While insisting that race wasn’t the issue, they knew that to elect another white man would have given the lie to the party’s claims to have re-invented itself.
So they had the option of choosing Marais – feisty, a powerful speaker, but with all the tact and finesse of a pitbull – or Morkel – moderate, considered, but devoid of charisma. They chose Morkel, the grey man of Western Cape politics.
Party leaders wanted, and got, someone who would take over the helm without rocking the boat. Morkel is safe, predictable and, say the cynics, pliable.
In him, the majority of voters in the province will have a leader who shares the colour of their skin.
The extent to which he will be able to share their aspirations or help realise them is moot – as is whether his election will be enough to persuade them to repeat at the polls the voting behaviour which swept the NP to its 54% majority in the province in the 1994 general election. Some political analysts suggest it is not, citing general disillusionment among voters in the Western Cape.
Morkel is the NP’s third provincial leader of colour, joining David Malatsi in Mpumalanga and Pieter Saaiman in the Northern Cape.
NP leader Marthinus van Schalkwyk has said Morkel’s election represents the party’s countrywide renewal, but then Van Schalkwyk is probably too young to remember that Morkel was first elected to the tri-cameral parliament in 1984 by his Retreat constituency, and thus is essentially a retreaded Labour Party politician.
No matter. Van Schalkwyk will no doubt be regularly reminded of this as the 1999 election campaign – already under way – hots up.
A key election issue will be the crime wave threatening to swamp the Cape. Morkel’s tenure as MEC in charge of policing has been spectacularly ineffective.
He was given the portfolio in April 1996 and was re-appointed in January this year after the ANC left the government of provincial unity.
Morkel has met escalating criticism of his management of the portfolio chiefly by complaining that the fault lies with central government.
It is true he enjoys only supervisory and monitoring powers over local police and that he has no say in how the bulk of the police budget is spent, but such details are lost on an increasingly frustrated public and it has to date been Kriel who has led the provincial charge on shortcomings in the system of co-operative governance.
Whatever the party may say, Morkel’s election hardly represents the accession of a new guard in the wake of Kriel’s departure.
Kriel may have been the last of the NP old guard to hold a position of power anywhere in the country. But rather than a break with the past, Morkel represents for the party the best chance of giving the impression of change without any fundamental shift taking place.
So it seems safe to predict that the NP in the Western Cape will continue in its old ways, looking after its traditional constituency. As political analyst Robert Schrire has noted, that means Die Burger, the farming community and white business.
Marais, caricatured in press profiles as a banjo-strumming, populist firebrand, will no doubt be used to lure the folk to the polls – assuming he can overcome the humiliation of his defeat.
Morkel – labelled by the press as “a gentleman” and described by an NP source as someone who “knows which fork to use” – will have his time cut out for him managing his portfolio (which he says he wants to keep), the premiership and keeping the lid on a party that – judging by the closeness of the Morkel/Marais race – appears to be anything but unified.
As for the rest of us, we’ll be hoping for the day when Western Cape politics not only changes its complexion but gets some real spice in the mix.
VITAL STATISTICS
Born: Fifty-seven years ago in Harfield, Cape Town
Defining characteristics: Worthy, but dull
Favourite people: Cricketers
Least favourite people: African National Congress voters
Likely to say: “Make mine a double”
Least likely to say: “I know my own mind”