Kraai van Niekerk

André Isak "Kraai" van Niekerk, born in KwaZulu-Natal, is a South African politician. He was a part-time sheep farmer who embarked on a political carreer for the National Party when he was elected MP for Prieska. A deputy minister under Pieter Willem Botha in the 1980s, he was appointed minister of agriculture by Frederik Willem de Klerk in 1991. He was the only minister of the last apartheid government to keep his post in the Government of National Unity under Nelson Mandela (until the end of the GNU in 1996). For some time, he was also the National Party's Chairman in the Northern Cape. He retired from parliament in 1997 to join Louis Luyt's Federal Alliance before the elections of 1999. [http://www.anc.org.za/elections/news/mar/en033004.html] After the elections, he became part of the two-member caucus of the FA, which entered an alliance with the Democratic Alliance then. Currently, he is Spokesperson on Agriculture of the DA caucus in the National Assembly. Van Niekerk, who is a member of Agri SA, has represented not less than three parties in the South African parliament.

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