According to a statement from Cyril Ramaphosa’s office, South Africa’s ex-Minister and anti-apartheid veteran, Essop Pahad has passed away at 84.
In the statement, President Ramaphosa had quoted the deceased’s contribution to democracy in South Africa.
Pahad had been described as “a thinker and strategist” who initially began his political revolutionary journey about 65 years ago, when he was indoctrinated as a member of the Transvaal Indian Congress. This congress had grappled against a white-minority rule.
Pahad had thereafter joined the ANC, President Ramaphosa’s party, where he was arrested and exiled in the 1960s for his advocacy.
However, he was not deterred by this as he kept on his political activities for the then-outlawed ANC.
He subsequently returned to South Africa in 1990 (the exact year the country’s ban on the ANC was withdrawn). That decade saw the removal of apartheid and the establishment of a democratic government in the country.
The late Mr Pahad had afterwards, served as a Minister in former President Mbeki’s administration from 1999 to 2008.
