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. In the 1980s and early 1990s, Mathale was politically active in anti-apartheid organisations in the Northern Transvaal, including local and regional branches of the Azanian Students Organisation, the Muhlava Youth Congress and Northern Transvaal Youth Congress, the Tzaneen Education Crisis Committee, and, once it had been established, the South African Students Congress. He was a member of the regional executive committee of the United Democratic Front (UDF) in Northern Transvaal from 1986 to 1990 and was