Ebrahim Rasool is regarded as someone who puts issues of social justice before privilege and prestige
Marianne Merten
Western Cape African National Congress leader Ebrahim Rasool long ago swopped the salaah thobe (prayer robe) embroidered with beads in ANC colours he wore in the Eighties for a collar and tie.
As the Western Cape’s new Finance, Business Promotion and Asset Management MEC, Rasool (39) has the most powerful post in the revamped provincial cabinet. He is the other half of a duarchy in the cabinet, with effectively the same influence as the New National Party’s Peter Marais, the new Western Cape premier.
The cabinet, announced on Wednesday, is evenly split between the parties with six posts each, including the premiership. All disputes, however, will be resolved jointly by Marais and Rasool. In a show of unity the two men toured the Cape Flats together this week.
Over the past two decades the quietly spoken former teacher and son of a District Six vegetable hawker has moved up the political ladder: from United Democratic Front and Call of Islam activist and political detainee, to health MEC in a government of provincial unity from 1994 to 1998, and now finance MEC. He has progressed in the Western Cape ANC from treasurer to chairman, and was re-elected unopposed for a second term in October.
In the process he traded the Cape Flats for suburban Pinelands, and a Volkswagen Beetle first for a second-hand BMW and now a luxury sedan.
Yet he is widely regarded as someone who puts issues of social justice before privilege and prestige. Described as principled, self-effacing and, by some, as dull, Rasool commands respect among his political opponents.
His challenge now is to prove that the ANC-NNP partnership in the Western Cape is more than a cynical horse trade and that it can deliver a better life to the province’s four million inhabitants.
His political future will turn critically on how voters rate the new government’s performance in the 2004 elections. The ANC, the largest party but without an overall majority in 1999, was kept out of power by a coalition pact between the NNP and Democratic Party, the precursor to the Democratic Alliance.
He is clearly determined to make the windfall of the DA split, and the subsequent ANC-NNP deal, count. Hours after the new cabinet was announced he had his first official meeting. He will also have to deal with the many senior finance and planning managers in the Western Cape administration who have entrenched their own interests.
A devout Muslim, Rasool describes himself as “traditional at heart, modern in mind”. He says he has two regrets: not knowing if he could have made it as a rugby player after politics derailed a promising sporting career at the age of 21, and not being able to play a musical instrument.
“He’s a very gentle person; a person of the heart. He works hard. He’s not scared to be found with an apron cooking,” said one friend, who also revealed Rasool’s talent for klawerjas, the Cape’s favourite card game.
His stubbornness in achieving goals has earned him brownie points from the most unexpected quarters, such as the verkrampte NNP ex-premier Hernus Kriel, who commended Rasool for a job well done as health MEC.
For that work Rasool was awarded the freedom of the town of Vanrhynsdorp in 1999, honorary life membership of the Planned Parenthood Association of South Africa and the 1998 Nelson Mandela Award for Health and Human Rights for “strong activism” in combating tuberculosis, a Western Cape scourge.
His approach is a low-profile one debate and persuasion, rather than rhetoric and strong-arm tactics. It stands out in a province marked by the rapid rise and fall of charismatic leaders.
But questions remain as to whether he has the street-fighting qualities usually required for political survival and success. “He’s nice. He’s decent. He shouldn’t be a politician,” was one comment.
Rasool remains far removed from the inner circles of President Thabo Mbeki, which may hurt him come 2004. Ahead of the June 1999 poll the national leadership looked for another candidate for premier until the last minute. Logistical problems were blamed for his absence when the announcement was made in Johannesburg.
And he has made political mistakes. For almost two years a multi-million rand defamation suit hung over his head despite two public apologies after he linked the then-Western Cape director general Niel Barnard to a casino licence bribery scam.
And the “coconut war” which erupted after an ANC advert accused black DA members of being black on the outside, white on the inside, and of selling out workers ended only with an unreserved apology by Rasool during the ANC provincial congress in October this year.
“Rasool thinks he has to play race politics to ingratiate himself with the [ANC] leadership. [He] had to compromise his own standards,” complained former Human Rights Commissioner Rhoda Khadalie, who sparred with him on newspaper letters pages.
But Khadalie also says she has respected Rasool and his ability to provide “moral leadership” since their days at the University of the Western Cape, where he was assistant to the rector between 1991 and 1994.
Rasool has shrugged off questions about his political future, remarking that he has “achieved heights beyond what others achieve in their lifetime”.