Ebrahim Rasool

Ebrahim Rasool was born on 15 July 1962 in District Six, Cape Town, to a Muslim family of mixed English-Javanese-Dutch-Indian heritage.¹ He is a South African politician and diplomat of the African National Congress who served as the fifth premier of the Western Cape from 2004 to 2008.¹ He was South Africa's ambassador to the United States from 2010 to 2015 and again in 2025, when he was declared persona non grata and expelled on 14 March 2025.¹

Rasool's family was forcibly evicted from District Six when he was nine years old, after the apartheid government declared the area a whites-only suburb, and relocated to Primrose Park near Manenberg on the Cape Flats.¹ He graduated from Livingstone High School in Claremont in 1980, took a bachelor of arts degree at the University of Cape Town in 1983 and a Higher Diploma in Education in 1984, and taught at Spine Road High School in 1985.¹ In the anti-apartheid movement he held senior positions in the United Democratic Front and the African National Congress, served prison sentences and was frequently placed under house arrest.¹ Between 1991 and 1994 he was an assistant to the rector of the University of the Western Cape and treasurer of the ANC's provincial structure.¹ He was elected to the Western Cape Provincial Legislature in April 1994 and served as MEC for Health and Social Services from 1994 to 1998.¹ He was elected provincial chairperson of the ANC in 1998 and appointed MEC for Finance and Economic Development in 2001.¹ In April 2004 he became the fifth premier of the Western Cape.¹ On 14 July 2008 the ANC's National Executive Committee recalled him as premier, and Lynne Brown succeeded him.¹ He briefly worked as a special advisor to President Thabo Mbeki, was elected to the National Assembly in April 2009, and was appointed ambassador to the United States by President Jacob Zuma in July 2010, returning to South Africa in February 2015.¹ In April 2018 the ANC announced him as its provincial elections head for the 2019 general elections.¹ He had been ranked 75th on the ANC's national party list for the 2024 general election, which was not high enough for him to return to the National Assembly.¹ Rasool is married to Rosieda Shabodien, and they have two children.¹

His bibliography includes the article "South African Muslims Over Three Centuries: From the Jaws of Islamophobia to the Joys of Equality", published in Arches Quarterly in the winter of 2010.¹

This section sets out different positions as reported in the sources. It is not a verdict by the museum. The article records that the ANC leadership recalled Rasool as premier in 2008 because it disapproved of him giving preference to the large Muslim and Cape Coloured populations in the Western Cape.¹ In 2010, before he took up the ambassadorship, an investigation was launched into allegations that he was paying a political reporter to write articles that portrayed him favourably; the investigation stalled when material witnesses refused to cooperate.¹ On 14 March 2025, Secretary of State Marco Rubio declared Rasool persona non grata and accused him of being a "race-baiting politician", after Rasool accused President Donald Trump and allies of promoting white supremacy in comments to a South African think tank.¹ The office of President Cyril Ramaphosa called the expulsion "regrettable", the Congress of South African Trade Unions praised Rasool and promised him a hero's welcome, and Rasool later told the BBC he believed racism within the Trump administration was "self-evident", while the administration denied allegations of racism.¹ The article also records scrutiny of Rasool over alleged prior ties to Islamist networks, including a 2023 photograph he posted featuring a keffiyeh signed by Ismail Haniyeh.¹

• Ebrahim Rasool — English Wikipedia¹
• Ebrahim Rasool — Arabic Wikipedia²
• Ebrahim Rasool — Wikidata Q1280058³