Leon Schreiber


Leon Amos Schreiber is a South African academic, author and Democratic Alliance politician currently serving as the Shadow Minister of Public Service and Administration since June 2019, and has served as a Member of the National Assembly of South Africa since May 2019.

Early life and education

Schreiber was born on 11 September 1988 in the Namaqualand region of the former Cape Province. He attended Paul Roos Gymnasium in Stellenbosch and graduated from the school in 2006. He studied at the University of Stellenbosch where he obtained a bachelor's degree in International Studies, a BA Honours in Political Science and then a master's degree in the same subject.
In 2015, he received his PhD in Political Science from the Free University of Berlin.

Career

Schreiber joined Princeton University as a Senior Research Specialist in 2015. He wrote the book Coalition Country: South Africa After the ANC, which was published in 2018.

Parliamentarian (2019–present)

He joined the DA and was a candidate for the party in the May 2019 general election. He was 8th on the party's regional list and 42nd on the provincial list. Due to the DA's electoral performance, he was elected a Member of Parliament and was sworn in on 22 May 2019. He later became the party's Stellenbosch constituency chair.
On 5 June 2019, Schreiber was appointed as the Shadow Minister of Public Service and Administration by Democratic Alliance leader Mmusi Maimane. John Steenhuisen, elected in October 2019, retained him in his post. As of June 2019, he serves a member of the Portfolio Committee on Public Service and Administration. He was an Alternate Member of the Ad Hoc Committee to Amend Section 25 of the Constitution until March 2020.
In October 2019, he resigned from the Stellenbosch University’s Institutional Forum with immediate effect due to the demotion of Afrikaans as a teaching medium.