Gerrit Viljoen

Gerrit Van Niekerk Viljoen (11 September 1926[1] – 29 March 2009) was a South African government minister and member of the National Party.

He was born in Cape Town in 1926, the son of Helena and Hendrik Geldenhuys Viljoen, the editor of Huisgenoot magazine.

In 1974, he succeeded Andries Treurnicht as chair of the Broederbond, an influential organisation of Afrikaners, of which almost all South African government ministers of the time were members.

In 1979, he was appointed Administrator-General of South West Africa, and in 1980 joined the government of P. W. Botha as Minister of Education.

As a senior ideologue and spokesman of the National Party, he investigated several constitutional models for a "new South Africa", and took part in the first official negotiations with the African National Congress in May 1990 after the release of political prisoners including Nelson Mandela.