Smit was born in 1955 and joined the ANC in 1994, the year that apartheid ended. His local ANC branch was in Mangaung in the Free State. He held a range of full-time positions in the provincial party administration and in the provincial government, including in the provincial Department of Agriculture and Rural Development and as liaison officer for minorities in the office of the Premier, Ace Magashule. In 2012 he told News24 that he was a die-hard political supporter of Magashule.
