Mathole Serofo Motshekga (born 2 April 1949) is a South African lawyer and politician who was elected to his third consecutive term as a Member of Parliament in the 2019 general election. He formerly represented his political party, the African National Congress (ANC), as the second Premier of Gauteng. Born in what is now Limpopo province, Motshekga was an Advocate of the Supreme Court of South Africa during apartheid and also taught law at the University of South Africa. In September 1997, he was elected Provincial Chairperson of the ANC in Gauteng; he succeeded Tokyo Sexwale as Premier in January 1998. However, after the 1999 general election, newly elected President Thabo Mbeki asked Motshekga to resign as Premier. In subsequent years Motshekga served as a Member of the Gauteng Provincial Legislature and was Chief Whip of the Majority Party in the National Assembly from 2009 until 2013, when he was demoted to an ordinary seat in Parliament. He was also elected to the National Executive Committee of the ANC in 2007 and 2017. Early life Motshekga was born on 2 April 1949 in Modjadjiskloof in what later became South Africa's Limpopo province. His father was a ranger on a white-owned farm, and he had younger siblings. He matriculated in 1969 and after graduation worked as a clerk at the University of the North. Early career and education Motshekga studied law at university, earning a BJuris from the University of South Africa (Unisa) in 1975, and in 1976 he moved to Pretoria to complete his articles for qualification as an attorney. He received an LLB from Unisa in 1978 and enrolled to complete a Doctor of Law at the same university. In 1979, he received a scholarship to conduct his doctoral research in Germany, where he conducted solidarity work for the African National Congress (ANC), attempting to mobilise international support for the anti-apartheid cause. He did similar work while visiting the United States the following year. Upon his return to South Africa, Motshekga was appointed a senior lecturer at Unisa, where he worked from 1984 to 1994. In 1984, he was admitted as an Advocate of the Supreme Court of South Africa. He ultimately obtained both his Doctorate of Law, from Unisa, and an LLM from Harvard Law School. He also maintained his contacts inside the ANC, which in the 1980s was based in Lusaka, Zambia. When the ANC was unbanned