Donald Smiles

Smiles qualified as a teacher by profession. In 1976 he was employed as a mathematics teacher at the Midlands Secondary School. During his time as a teacher at Midlands, he was detained on multiple occasions for campaigning for human rights and non-racialism between 1976 and 1989. He became the headmaster of Rosmead Primary School near the town of Middelburg in the present-day Eastern Cape province of South Africa.^[1] He was elected to the Transitional Local Council and later served in the local council of the Middelburg municipality where he was mayor as a member of the African National Congress between June 1994 and December 1995.^[1]

Smiles resigned from the ANC in 1995 and was then elected as an independent councillor.^[1] He joined the Democratic Party, which later became the Democratic Alliance, in 1998 and was elected to the Eastern Cape Provincial Legislature as a party representative the following year.^[2] He was re-elected to the provincial legislature in the 2004 provincial election.^[3]

Smiles was elected to the National Assembly of South Africa from the DA's Eastern Cape list in the 2009 general election.^[4] He was appointed the party's deputy spokesman on basic education shortly afterwards.^[5] Smiles did not stand for re-election in the 2014 general election and left parliament.^[6]

Smiles is married to Merwida. The couple has three children together.^[1]

In July 2020, Smiles and his wife spoke to TimesLIVE about their experience with COVID-19 during the COVID-19 pandemic in South Africa.^[7]