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.
However, in 2001, the NNP leadership pulled out of its co-operation with the DA and instead sought to form a partnership with the African National Congress.
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 October 2002.
Morkel continued for a while as Western Cape provincial leader of the DA but eventually stepped down due to his links to fraudster Jurgen Harksen.